


Polaris Air 387

by MSSmysterygirl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Based on True Events, F/F, NTSB investigator Clarke, Pilot Lexa, Slow Burn, mildly angsty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:21:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 59,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26688838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MSSmysterygirl/pseuds/MSSmysterygirl
Summary: “I can’t get any power to the engines.”Lexa thinks she can’t possibly have heard that right.“What?” She says sharply.First Officer Bellamy Blake’s voice is tight, tense.  “I can’t get any—”He doesn’t finish the sentence but that’s okay.  Lexa can already see and feel the problem.  The throttles are all the way forward, but the plane isn’t responding.  They’re coming in for a landing, just a few hundred feet above the ground, and looming in their path are several power lines, a road, a gas station and some twenty-foot antennae right at the threshold of the runway.And the plane is too low.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 107
Kudos: 279





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! Your friendly, resident airplane geek here to regale you with a tale of....
> 
> Okay.
> 
> A few disclaimers:  
> 1) I am not an airline pilot. I know nothing about the actual workings of the airline industry. Well, not nothing but not much. So I just made some of it up.  
> 2) I am not an NTSB investigator either. All my knowledge is from many years of watching Mayday Air Disasters. :)  
> 3) I own none of these characters. Well, unless I made them up.
> 
> Also: this story jumps around time-wise. So note the dates at the beginning of each little section.

_****Foreword**** _

Every pilot knows some, if not all, their names: Al Haynes, Rebecca Shaw, Eric Moody, Katie Leslie, Bob Pearson, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, Bob Loft, Candalyn Kubeck, Tammie Jo Schultz, and on and on. Pilots, co-pilots, flight engineers; fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers… All of them people. People who were faced with the same blinding realization… _It’s happening. And it’s happening to me_.

* * *

**September 10**

**12:42:08**

“I can’t get any power to the engines.”

Lexa thinks she can’t possibly have heard that right.

“What?” She says sharply, her eyes instinctively dropping to the instrument panel.She holds the airplane steady.

First Officer Bellamy Blake’s voice is tight, tense.“I can’t get any—”

He doesn’t finish the sentence but that’s okay.Lexa can already see and feel the problem.The throttles are all the way forward, but the plane isn’t responding.There’s no increase in power.They’re coming in for a landing, just a few hundred feet above the ground, and looming in their path are several power lines, a road, a gas station and some twenty-foot antennae right at the threshold of the runway. 

And the plane is too low.

* * *

**(24 hours earlier)**

**September 9**

**12:30:31**

“And this is Madi, she’s six.”Bellamy turns his phone to face Lexa across the table, the screen displaying a photo of a small, brown-haired child with Bellamy’s same, crinkly-eyed smile.She’s posing behind a huge, pink birthday cake with a candle in the shape of a 6 on top.

“Adorable!” Lexa exclaims, delighted.This is one of her favorite parts about her job — meeting new people and learning about their lives.

Lexa loves people.She briefly considered going into anthropology (specifically cultural anthropology) when she started thinking about college options but ultimately opted for the military instead.Having always loved airplanes and growing up in an aviation family, it made sense that she would go the route of the Air Force.After flying fighter jets for almost eight years, she left the military and now, at thirty-one, has been flying commercial airliners for Polaris Air ever since. 

She had started as a First Officer, flying 737s.That had been fun.The 737 is a compact, versatile workhorse of an airplane.They are a little squat looking for Lexa’s liking, but she can’t deny that they are a pleasure to fly.Reliable and sturdy and requiring only a flight crew of two, the 737 is undoubtedly a great plane.It can handle short-haul and medium-haul flights and isn’t difficult to handle in turbulence.Lexa had thoroughly enjoyed every minute behind the control column of that wonderful aircraft.She had affectionately referred to all models of the 737 as “Junior.”She still does today, although she hasn’t flown one in years.

When Lexa had been with the airline for two years, her license was up for review.Noting that she had stellar marks on all her training courses and exams, the airline had set her up for a promotion to Captain.However, they wanted her to train as captain on bigger aircraft.Polaris Air had just bought several new airplanes for their fleet, including three brand-spanking-new 777s.

777s are, in a word, enormous.Lexa had stood on the tarmac in sheer awe of N240PA, her favorite of the 777s in the fleet, the first time she had seen it.She could not believe that she, Alexandria Leigh Wood, was going to fly this beautiful, massive bird.She had felt an instant connection to this particular airplane and had immediately nicknamed it _Baby_ and to this day she always feels just a little more at home in the cockpit of N240PA than any other airplane.

“Are you married? Kids?”Bellamy’s question brings Lexa’s thoughts back to the present.They are having lunch in the airport, having just met for their four-day stretch of flying together.The flight attendants that they’ll be flying with for the next four days will meet them at the aircraft in about an hour.

Lexa finishes chewing.“Nope, not married and no kids.I do have a dog though.”

“Nice!” Bellamy says.“What kind of dog?”

“Boxer,” Lexa answers.“His name is Titus.”

“Where does he stay when you’re flying?”

“Either in a doggie hotel or with my sister, Anya.” Lexa wipes her hands on her napkin.“I miss him, though.I wish he could fly with me.He’d be the most well-traveled dog around!”

Bellamy laughs, a deep, rolling laugh.“That’s for sure.You should get him some of those old-fashioned aviator goggles!” They both chuckle at the mental image. 

Bellamy continues,“Madi has a gerbil, but he’s not very cuddly.He got out once and chewed through a wall.Maybe when she’s old enough to have a little more responsibility we’ll get her a dog.Echo is allergic to cats, so that’s a no-go.”

“Probably for the best,” Lexa jokes.“Cats can be assholes.”

* * *

**September 10**

**12:42:14**

“Fuel’s good.” Bellamy speaks quickly and efficiently.They have no time for any extra words.But this lets Lexa know that lack of fuel isn’t the problem. 

The trouble is, she has no idea what _is_ the problem.It doesn’t really matter, though.Right now, all that matters is getting this airplane, and everyone in it, on the ground safely.

“Altitude,” Lexa says. It’s a request but it doesn’t sound like one.

“Ah, into six-fifty.”

They aren’t going to make it.The airplane is configured for landing, but that won’t do them any good if they can’t land on a runway.If they hit the power lines, the road or, God forbid, the gas station, the plane will explode in a fiery inferno that would undoubtedly kill not only everyone on the airplane but probably many people on the ground.

Over the radio, Lexa and Bellamy hear Air Traffic Control clear them for landing.“Polaris three-eighty-seven heavy, cleared to land.”

“Roger, three-eighty-seven,” Lexa says.

The captain’s bars on the shoulders of Lexa’s uniform have always been one of her favorite parts of her attire.Today, however, she feels the full weight of those bars and of the knowledge that there are 227 people behind her whose lives are solely in her hands.

* * *

**September 9**

**13:09:44**

They are standing in the front galley of N240PA and Lexa is addressing her crew at the beginning of their four-day stint.She usually does an ice-breaker activity when it’s a crew that has never worked together before, where they tell each other a few things about themselves.It helps them get to know one another as humans, which is helpful when they’re going to be spending the majority of four days hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour in a metal tube.They need to have a sense of unity, and knowing a little bit about each other helps. 

Lexa has made several new friends this way, actually; finding out that they have things in common when it otherwise might not have come up.One of her closest friends is Gustus, a big, burly German guy who was her First Officer a year back.Lexa had tried hard to imagine how on Earth he would fit himself into the cockpit seat, but he had managed.Through Lexa’s get-to-know-you game, they found they both had a love of spaghetti, of all things, and had spent part of the flight discussing the best Italian eateries in the country.Now they spoke regularly, and even though they lived on opposite ends of the country, they had managed to meet up a couple of times during layovers.

Now, Lexa faced her crew of six flight attendants plus Bellamy.“My name is Lexa Wood.My favorite food is spaghetti and my favorite color is green.I have a dog named Titus and in my free time I like to take boxing classes and go trail running.What about you?” She turns to Bellamy.

“I’m Bellamy Blake.My favorite color is orange and my favorite food is pizza.”He gives a small laugh.“I know, like a kid.My wife, Echo, and I have a six-year-old daughter and she’s due with our second in about a month.Between flying and family I don’t have a ton of free time, but when I do I like to cook or shoot pool.”

They each took turns sharing a few tidbits about themselves.

Jasper Jordan, the head flight attendant, had been with the company for four years.Lexa had flown with him a few times and likes him.He looks younger than he is, but handles stress very well.She had seen him calm down irate passengers on several occasions.He had a habit of drinking more than perhaps he should when the crew would go out for dinner together, but it never affected his work performance and there was nothing to say he couldn’t have a few drinks in the evenings.He was always a pleasure to work with and Lexa knows her passengers are always in good hands with him.He shares that his favorite color is orange and his favorite food is Lucky Charms cereal, which makes Lexa laugh out loud.

Raven Reyes (what is with all the alliteration with peoples’ names, Lexa wonders) is a bright young woman with an incredible work ethic.Were it not for the fact that she’d only been with Polaris Air for eight months, she likely would have had Jasper’s position on this shift.Lexa has flown with Raven a handful of times and thinks she’s great.She’s funny and smart, never needing redirection or instruction.She tells them that her favorite color is blue and her favorite food is sushi.She also has a dog, Wick, a French Bulldog who is afraid of garbage trucks.

“Isn’t every dog afraid of the garbage truck?” Chuckles Harper McIntyre, the third flight attendant.Lexa has flown with her once before and doesn’t remember her very well.She seems nice enough, though unremarkable.Harper informs them that her favorite color is red and her favorite food is either steak or salmon.Her dog, Macie, is also afraid of the garbage truck, and everything else that moves.Her husband, Monty, runs an insurance sales business out of their house, and Macie is always barking in the background during important calls.

The remaining three flight attendants are new to Lexa. 

John Murphy, the only other male flight attendant on board besides Jasper, is a young guy with a serious demeanor.Lexa can’t quite get a read on him, which is unusual for her.He says his favorite color is green and his favorite food is chicken alfredo.Solid choice, Lexa thinks.

Ontari Snow and Luna Natblida are the remaining two.They appear to know each other, and Lexa seems to remember them both being hired around the same time.Sure enough, in their intros, Ontari mentions she and Luna are best friends and roommates.This actually tends to work out well, in Lexa’s experience.People who are close in life, especially friends, often work well together, already knowing how the other one operates and thinks.Their favorite colors are purple and black, respectively, and they share the same favorite food: cheesecake.

“All right,” Lexa says after everyone has spoken.“I want you all to know that I’m not only the captain, I’m also part of the crew.We are a team.If anything is wrong and you need help?It’s okay to call on me.If I can’t help you right then, I’ll tell you so.And then as soon as I’m able, I’ll help.Same with First Officer Blake, all right?” Bellamy nods at this. “The team is not split by the cockpit door.Let’s support each other and have a great four days, okay?”

* * *

**September 10**

**12:42:16**

Lexa resists the urge to throw the throttles forward again and again.She knows that it won’t work.The landing gear is down already, the wheels extended toward the ground, ready to take the impact of the airplane touching down on the runway.

Except they may not touch down on the runway.

Lexa’s eyes scan the instruments.She glances up and out of the windscreen again. If she could just figure out a way to extend their glide a tiny bit, they might be able to clear the obstacles and at least come down within the airport perimeter fence.

“Five hundred,” says the automated voice of the altimeter system.They are passing through five hundred feet above the ground.Lexa knows the time between five hundred feet altitude and touchdown is anywhere between thirty-five and forty seconds.

The landing gear is creating a lot of drag, but there isn’t enough time or altitude to pull it back up.Besides, if they do manage to clear the gas station and antennae, they’ll need the gear out to land on.Landing with no power is bad enough and Lexa doesn’t want to add a belly-landing to that.

At that moment, a loud, jarring alarm sounds in the cockpit.A buzzing sound with an increased inflection, repeating over and over.Lexa has only heard that sound in simulators before — it’s the Master Caution aural warning.It is a sound designed to get the attention of the pilots, and it works.

Only a moment later, the control column starts to shake in Lexa’s hands.It’s what’s called a _‘stick shaker’_ warning. 

“Stall,” Bellamy points out needlessly. 

The plane is flying too slow.It’s at risk of losing lift on the wings and dropping like a stone.Lexa pushes the column forward just a little, dipping the nose and increasing the airspeed just enough to kill the stall alarm.

“Call a Mayday,” Lexa says.

Bellamy speaks into the radio.“Mayday, Polaris three-eighty-seven.”

The tower responds, asking about their situation but Bellamy doesn’t answer.There isn’t time.The fact that he called a Mayday will get the fire trucks ready, anyway.A 777 setting down anywhere other than the runway will not go unnoticed.The rescue workers will find them.

The engines are essentially running at almost idle speed.The airplane needs a push to get up and over everything in its path.But other than throttling up or pulling up the gear (which isn’t an option anyway), what could keep them suspended in the air just a touch longer?

Suddenly, she knows.

“Flaps twenty,” Lexa says and Bellamy immediately moves. 

The retraction of the flaps from thirty degrees to twenty reduces the drag just enough.

Lexa holds her breath, her hands steady, holding the control column.Wings level.Nose up.

Without having been instructed, Bellamy reaches for the button that operates the public address system in the airplane, and Lexa hears him speak one word, and one word only.

“Brace.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my wonderful beta montymoonshine. I appreciate you and your willingness to put up with my random airplane ramblings on tumblr haha. xoxo

**September 9**

**13:44:14**

“You want to do the intro announcement or should I?” Lexa asks, reaching overhead to flip some switches on the cockpit ceiling. “Circuit breaker check,” she adds, because she has to say aloud that she did this. If anything should happen to the airplane, the cockpit voice recorder (or CVR) would be analyzed and the investigators would listen for signs that the pilots had performed all the necessary pre-flight duties and completed all the checklists.

Bellamy taps a stack of papers against his lap and places them in a folder between the seats. 

“I’ll do it.” He reaches for the button that operates the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, this is First Officer Blake speaking from the flight deck. I’m up here with Captain Wood and we are preparing for pushback.”

Lexa stifles a chuckle over the change in the timbre of his voice. He sounds like a talk show host. 

Bellamy gives her a mock glare and continues. “This is a nonstop service from Seattle to the Big Apple — New York, New York. Flight time should be about….” He checks the sticky note with the flight number, destination and flight duration on it that is stuck to the console. “Five hours and ten minutes. We have a slight tailwind working for us so we might be able to shave a couple minutes off and get you there a little faster. Expecting smooth skies today so please sit back, relax, and enjoy your flight across the country.”

“You should go into voice acting,” Lexa quips, and Bellamy laughs. Then they both adhere to the ‘sterile cockpit’ rule, where during critical parts of the flight (such as preparing for takeoff, takeoff, climbout, preparing for landing, landing and taxiing,) no conversation aside from topics pertinent to the flight is allowed.

The radio crackles to life. “Polaris three-seventy-one heavy, cleared for door closure and pushback.”

“Three-seventy-one heavy, cleared for doors and push,” Lexa repeats back. 

This flight, flight three-seventy-one, is the first of seven flights they’ll take over the four days of working. Seattle, Washington to JFK in New York City is one of Lexa’s favorite flights, especially when the weather isn’t tumultuous over the center of the country. She has flown some gnarly routes in her time.

She remembers one particularly hairy approach to Denver, Colorado in the summertime. This was some years back; she was flying N112PA, a lovely little 737 with just over a hundred people on board. There were some thunderstorms in the area but fortunately their path to the runway was unaffected. A mere five hundred feet above the ground, however, the wind whipped up out of nowhere and essentially turned the plane on its side. She and her First Officer had only had a split second to make a horrified face at one another, as they hung, suspended eerily on the completely wrong axis, before Lexa had come to her senses and used aileron and rudder input to level the airplane. The landing was not as smooth as she would have liked but at least they landed on the wheels. That was the first time she could remember hearing applause from the cabin after landing.

“Contact tower at two-one-four point one, have a good day,” says the departure controller.

“Two-one-four point one, so long,” Responds Lexa, and she changes the radio frequency.

* * *

**September 10**

**12:42:40**

“Cleared the fence,” Bellamy says, needlessly. 

Lexa barely hears him. She knows they’ve missed the power lines, the road, the gas station and the antennae. She also knows they won’t make the runway. Luckily, all that stands between them and the threshold of the runway is grass.

Time seems to move in slow motion. Lexa’s ears are ringing. The airplane seems to be hanging in mid-air, time suspended, as though someone hit pause on life.

Lexa thinks of Bellamy, in the seat beside her. She thinks of his wife, their daughter and their unborn child. She thinks of Jasper, Raven, Harper, John, Ontari, Luna and the 277 passengers behind her. And then she thinks of herself. She thinks of her dog, Titus. She thinks of her sister, Anya. She thinks of her parents.

The beginning of the runway is so close but just not close enough. Lexa wishes that a random tailwind would start up and just shove the airplane a little further forward. As if God himself was right behind them, blowing a kiss.

The runway moves up, up, up in the windscreen.

And then they touch down on the grass. Hard. 

Lexa can tell immediately that it’s not anything like landing on the runway. The airplane bounces back up into the air momentarily before smashing down again, this time accompanied by the sound of tearing metal.

Trying to steer the aircraft is futile right now, Lexa knows. She completely removes her feet from the pedals (it’s a little-known fact that pilots steer aircraft on the ground using foot pedals). They are at the mercy of the airplane’s momentum, gravity and fate.

The angle of the view out the windscreen changes and Lexa can tell that the nose landing gear has collapsed. They are sliding along the ground like a huge toboggan. Lexa wonders if the main landing gear has also collapsed. This would mean that the engines would have dug into the ground, perhaps shearing off. Maybe even taking the whole wing along with them. Lexa has a brief image of the airplane cartwheeling along the ground, breaking into pieces, bursting into flames, burning—

And then… they stop.

And all Lexa hears is silence.

* * *

**September 9**

**13:56:02**

The engines produce a satisfying roar as Bellamy eases the throttles open. The speed ticks up and Lexa feels the force of the acceleration press her back into her seat. She watches the knots carefully.

When they hit 160 knots, Lexa says, “V1.” This is the point at which they can no longer abort the take-off. The speed the airplane is going would not allow them to stop without overshooting the end of the runway. At V1, there is no turning back; they are committed to take-off.

The knots reach 170 and Lexa says, “Rotate.”

Bellamy pulls back slowly on the control column and eases the plane’s nose into the air. The ground drops away beneath them as the mammoth airliner heaves itself laboriously into the sky.

“Positive climb, gear up,” Says Lexa, pushing a button to retract the wheels into the belly of the plane.

Tower comes over the radio. “Polaris three-seventy-one heavy, climb three-thousand, contact Center at one-niner-five-point-six, safe flight.”

“Center at one-niner-five-six, have a good one.” Lexa flips the radio frequency again. “Three thousand,” She repeats to Bellamy, who is performing a spectacular takeoff. “Flaps fifteen. I’ll get our clearance, you just fly.”

“Roger that,” Bellamy says, easily.

Speaking into her headset, Lexa contacts Center. “Good afternoon Center, this is Polaris three-seventy-one heavy. We are climbing through flight level two-five-hundred, cleared for three. Requesting clearance to flight level one-zero-zero.”

“Polaris three-seventy-one heavy, good day. Cleared flight level one-zero-zero via Papa Beacon. Report when reached.”

“Roger, three-seventy-one.” 

Lexa loves the radio contact portion of her job. She doesn’t know who she’s speaking to most times, but sometimes she’ll recognize a voice. She loves it when the Air Traffic Controllers have a sense of humor.

One time, on the ground in Chicago, a small corporate jet had been told to taxi down the taxiway just ahead of an Emirates Airbus A380, which is the largest passenger jet in existence. 

The pilot of the small jet had obviously felt some trepidation about taxiing in front of the behemoth airplane and asked the tower if they were sure he should be in front of the A380 instead of behind it, to which the tower had replied, _‘Roger, taxi in front of the A380. Don’t worry, he’s not hungry.’_

Another time, Lexa had been in a holding pattern over Houston, Texas because of weather. Many aircraft were circling, waiting for the weather to clear so they could land. Some flights had to be diverted because of overcrowded airspace. The woman who was handling a great many of the flights was understandably getting frazzled. After reaming out an unfortunate pilot (who had made the mistake of asking to be moved up in the queue due to his fuel levels dropping), an unidentified pilot said over the radio, _‘hey, wasn’t I married to you once?’_

It had taken a good five minutes for Lexa and her co-pilot to stop laughing.

She had dealt with her fair share of snappy air traffic controllers, but had also had some really nice exchanges too. On one flight that Lexa was piloting coming into Washington D.C., she had informed ATC that she had a military transport in her cargo hold. The controller, a woman named Peggy, had gone out of her way to make sure that the right people were waiting by the airplane when they parked at the gate, and that there were people from the military to escort not only the coffin but the family off the plane, with full salute and regalia. 

The family had thanked Lexa and her First Officer as they deplaned ahead of everyone else. Lexa had never felt prouder to be a pilot. All 150 passengers sat in respectful silence as the family gathered their belongings and deplaned. No one complained. No one jostled. No one grumbled. 

It was truly beautiful.

* * *

**September 10**

**12:43:01**

The silence lasts mere seconds.

Lexa pushes the button for the intercom and says simply, “Evacuate.”

A flurry of activity can be heard through the cockpit door. Lexa and Bellamy can hear the flight attendants chanting the words they had been trained to say in an emergency evacuation, “Leave your belongings, go to the nearest emergency exit! Leave your belongings, go to the nearest emergency exit!”

“Engines off,” Bellamy says, reaching to flip the switches to power off the engines. 

Lexa isn’t even sure if the engines are still on the airplane or not, but at the very least turning off the switches will stop fuel flowing to the engines. Or, where the engines had been, as the case may be. Lexa realizes with a start that she doesn’t even know if the airplane is in one piece!

Out the windscreen, Lexa can see fire trucks rushing up to the airplane. Soon, she can’t see anything at all because the airplane is covered in fire-retardant foam.

Bellamy unbuckles his harness and looks Lexa in the eye. “Let’s get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr : mssmysterygirl  
> Come say hi! :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome... Clarke!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... as a disclaimer... I have a pretty limited idea of how NTSB investigations go IRL. I understand that this may not be super accurate but let's just suspend disbelief here for a little bit, hmmkay?
> 
> This chapter is a little on the dialogue-heavy side. Just FYI. :)
> 
> Thank you to the amazing underthecovers for checking this chapter for me! I appreciate you endlessly!!! xo

**September 10**

**5:54:41**

The fluorescent lights in the small office are emitting a buzzing sound that is incredibly irritating. Lexa wishes she could turn them off. But she’s stuck in here waiting for someone from the National Transportation Safety Board to come and interview her.

She picks up the cup of coffee someone had given her an hour and a half ago and swirls the contents. Lexa thinks that calling it coffee is a bit of a stretch; it tastes more like battery acid. Or maybe that’s the bile that’s been rising in her throat since the moment they got off the airplane.

_ By the time Lexa and Bellamy exit the aircraft, all the passengers have been evacuated. They walk down the two center aisles and check each seat themselves, making sure there is no one left on board. Only then do they both jump out and slide down the evacuation slides onto the ground. _

_ The weather is clear but cold. Lexa’s breath hangs in the air in front of her. She suddenly has a memory of being a child and pretending she was a fire-breathing dragon, breathing out great puffs of smoke into the cold air. _

_ “What happened?” Jasper asks as he and Raven approach. Passengers are milling around on the tarmac, unsure where to go. Harper, John, Ontari and Luna are all trying to corral them while they wait for instruction. _

_ “We’re not sure,” Bellamy answers. “We were under the glide slope so we tried to increase power but the engines just didn’t respond.” _

_ “Fuel?” Raven asks, eyeing the airplane. _

_ Lexa follows Raven’s gaze and once again finds herself in awe of the sight of N240PA. Not because of its size this time, but because of how odd it looks at this moment.  _

_ Covered in fire-retardant foam, the airplane is a muted grayish color instead of its usual vibrant blue. The emergency evacuation slides are all deployed, making it look as though the airplane has grown half a dozen extra legs. Lexa thinks it looks more like some strange giant, flying insect than a plane. _

_ “Nope, plenty of fuel.” Bellamy shakes his head. “It was really weird.” _

_ Lexa tears her eyes away from the airplane and looks at the passengers. She knows everyone is safe — the flight attendants had reported that immediately as well as no major injuries — but she thinks that some of them are looking accusatorily at her and Bellamy. _

_ It hits her in that moment; that some of them probably think that she and Bellamy are responsible for the crash. _

Are we? _ She wonders, feeling the icy cold fingers of doubt squeeze her heart. They hadn’t missed a step, had they? Lexa has been flying for years; she has landed airplanes literally thousands of times.  _

We did all the checklists, didn’t we? _ She feels her breathing start to increase.  _

The splash of liquid on her leg makes Lexa jump in her seat. She has squeezed the cup of terrible coffee so hard that it has spilled out and onto her lap. She glances around the office for a box of tissues.

And that is when the door opens. Lexa jerks her head to face the doorway.

“I apologize for you having to wait so long,” says a female voice from behind a giant stack of folders, books, notebooks and legal pads that appear to be on legs, juggling the door. One foot lifts up to kick the door closed. The woman plops the stack of items down on the table between herself and Lexa, sets her satchel down on the floor, adjusts her blazer, and looks Lexa in the eye.

Lexa finds herself momentarily speechless.

The woman looks young - maybe even younger than Lexa herself. She has long blonde hair that falls over her shoulders in gentle waves and is wearing tight black jeans and a blue shirt underneath her blazer. The reason Lexa notices these things is twofold — one, she’s always had a good eye for detail (which is useful in her career) and two, the color blue on the woman’s shirt brings out the startling blue of her eyes. Eyes which Lexa can’t seem to stop staring into.

“I’m Clarke Griffin,” says the woman, extending her hand for Lexa to shake. “NTSB.”

Lexa accepts the handshake. 

“Alexandria Wood.”

“Do you go by Alexandria?” Clarke asks, opening the top file that is in danger of slipping off the top of the pile.

“Lexa, usually.” Lexa plays absentmindedly with her crushed-up coffee cup.

“Is it okay if I call you Lexa?”

“Sure.”

Clarke sits down across from Lexa, still shuffling folders around. She laughs softly to herself. 

“Sorry. I swear I’m usually more organized than this. I was in the middle of moving offices when I got the call to come up here and had to dig around for all the important stuff.”

Lexa eyes the formidable stack. 

“You had all this stuff in your office?”

“No,” Clarke answers, apparently finding the folder she wanted and opening it. She reaches down into her satchel and procures a bottle of water. 

“Some of it was in the NTSB library. Some of the books, for instance. Talks about the airports and landing procedures. It’s a lot.” 

She takes a sip of her water. 

“Thirsty?”

“Uh, no thanks,” Lexa responds. She uncrosses and crosses her legs in the other direction.

After drinking two thirds of the bottle of water, Clarke finally pops the cap back on and sets it on the table. 

“Okay,” she says. “Let’s get started.”

Lexa waits.

“I’m going to record this interview, okay?” Clarke reaches into her satchel again and this time pulls out a small tape recorder.

“Of course.”

Pushing the button on the side of the tape recorder and checking to make sure the red light is on, Clarke says, “This is Clarke Griffin, interviewing Alexandria ‘Lexa’ Wood. September the tenth, twenty-twenty, at—” Clarke glances at the watch on her wrist. “—five fifty-five in the evening.”

Clarke turns the tape recorder and pushes it to the middle of the table.

“Would you state your full name, date and place of birth? Just for record purposes.”

“Alexandria Leigh Wood. Date of birth is July twenty-fourth, nineteen eighty-nine. Place of birth is Batesburg, South Carolina.”

Clarke checks that against a sheet of paper. “A Leo,” she says, smiling. “Nice.”

Lexa tries to smile but can’t quite make it happen.

“Tell me what happened on Polaris Air flight…” Clarke lifts up the paper she’s looking at and peers at the one beneath it. “…three-eighty-seven today. Start from the beginning.”

Lexa takes a deep breath.

“It was a typical flight. We took off from JFK, the airplane was behaving normally. No hesitation or issues from either engine. We climbed normally, put the autopilot on and basically didn’t touch it except once around the center of Canada to avoid some weather.”

Clarke nods and says nothing. Her hands are still holding onto the folder in front of her but her eyes are watching Lexa. For a second, Lexa feels as though they’re just having a normal conversation. She envisions them at a coffee shop or a restaurant, Clarke across the table from her, listening intently to her talking about her work day.

_ What? _ Lexa thinks, caught off guard by the image. She can’t deny that Clarke is very pretty but she doesn’t know the first thing about her. She’s also very surprised at her brain’s ability to even acknowledge this woman’s attractiveness given the situation at hand. Maybe it’s her brain’s defense mechanism. Maybe it’s easier to think about talking to someone from the NTSB when the physical attractiveness of the person is what you focus on rather than the reason you’re talking to them in the first place.

“Anyway, everything was just… normal.” Lexa flips her hands palm up on the table. “I know I keep saying that word, but that’s what it was. Nothing remarkable at all. We approached Anchorage using ILS.”

“I know what ILS is, but can you explain it quickly for people who aren’t as familiar with it? All kinds of people will end up hearing this interview.” Clarke does not break eye contact while she talks.

“Sure,” Lexa says. “ILS stands for ‘instrument landing system.’ It basically means that the airplane sends radio beams back and forth with equipment at the runway which provides a kind of guide for the pilots. It tells us how high we need to be at corresponding points along the path to the runway. It essentially ensures we don’t come in too high or too low. It helps us descend smoothly.”

“And the ILS was working?”

“Yeah, it was working fine. We were just a little under the glide slope so we tried to accelerate to eat up some distance without losing any more altitude but the engines didn’t respond.”

Clarke flips through the pages of the folder almost absentmindedly as she listens. Her blue eyes skim the pages in front of her but never settle on anything in particular. “And before you tried to accelerate, what were the engines doing?”

Lexa lets out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Well, we’d been coming in kind of fast because of a tailwind, so we hadn’t needed to accelerate at all up until that point. So prior to that moment the engines were basically just going at cruising speed. The same speed they’d been at for most of the flight. At least since mid-Canada.”

“Okay, so then what happened? Who was flying at that point?”

Without warning, Lexa feels her hands start to shake. She quickly tucks them under her legs to keep Clarke from noticing. She doesn’t want it to look like she can’t handle herself in stressful situations.

“I was flying, but I asked First Officer Blake to add some throttle.”

“Is it unusual for a pilot to ask the F.O. to do something if they’re not the one flying?” Clarke’s question is pointed but her voice doesn’t sound accusatory. 

Lexa shrugs. “Not necessarily. Like I said, we had a little tail wind. I wouldn’t say the airplane was exactly bouncing around but… I guess I’ll just say that it seemed like it was easier to ask him to move the throttle up just a little bit than it would have been for me to take one hand off the control column and do it myself.”

“Okay, understood.” Clarke says. “So what happened then?”

Lexa’s eyes hit the table as she remembers. “We were still coming in too low, but we didn’t have enough altitude to troubleshoot and figure out what the problem was. If we didn’t figure out some way to reduce our drag and extend our glide, we were in danger of hitting any one of a number of things outside the perimeter fence. Any of which would have ended disastrously.”

Clarke looks like she’s literally on the edge of her seat. “So what did you do then?” Her voice has a tinge of excitement to it which Lexa thinks, somewhere in the back of her mind, is a little bit adorable.

“I thought about pulling up the landing gear because it obviously creates a lot of drag. But I knew that we weren’t high up enough to make that a feasible option. So the only other thing I could think of to do was pull in the flaps. So I told First Officer Blake to pull the flaps in to twenty degrees.”

“And it worked?”

“Yeah,” Lexa says, meeting Clarke’s gaze again. “I mean, sort of. We made it over all the things in our path. We just didn’t quite make it to the runway.”

Clarke is nodding, now flipping through the pages of another folder. She keeps nodding for several seconds. Finally, she snaps the folder closed and meets Lexa’s eyes once more. “Well, all your passengers are safe. I can’t say for sure what caused the accident but I can say with some amount of certainty that it could have been  _ much _ worse than it was. Everyone got off the plane safely today.”

Suddenly, Lexa feels her eyes start to burn.  _ What is happening to me? _

Clarke seems to notice Lexa’s sudden discomfort. “Are you all right?”

Lexa nods, desperately trying to gain control over her emotions. She doesn’t feel sad, so why are her traitorous eyes trying to well up with tears right now?

In an instant, Clarke is out of her chair across the table and is sitting beside Lexa. “Hey,” she says, placing her hand on Lexa’s shoulder. “Hey. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Turning to look at Clarke, Lexa is surprised. This woman works for the NTSB. She’s supposed to be  _ interrogating _ her, trying to figure out why and how a multimillion dollar aircraft under  _ Lexa’s command  _ ended up mangled at the beginning of a runway in Alaska, not comforting her. Lexa is even more surprised when she sees Clarke reach over and turn off the tape recorder.

“I-I…” Lexa stammers. She squeezes her eyes closed and inhales shakily. 

“Listen,” Clarke’s voice is soft. “You went through a terrifying experience today. I can’t say whether or not you are at fault for this accident because the investigation has barely just begun. But I can tell you that you are  _ human. _ You are human and you endured a traumatic event. It’s okay to not have it all together right this second. Your passengers are safe. Your crew is safe.  _ You _ are safe.”

“But the airplane - ”

“ - Is a machine. It can be repaired or it’ll be scrapped and used for pieces. But the lives of your passengers? Those can’t be replaced. I don’t know what happened to your airplane up there, Lexa, but I have no doubt that you did everything you could to save the lives of your passengers. That’s what pilots do. That’s what  _ you _ do.”

_ She means it, _ Lexa realizes with a start. And for the first time in hours, she lets herself take off her Captain’s hat and be a human like everyone else.

  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of a shortish, filler chapter before we move on with the main plot. Thank you to underthecovers and montymoonshine for all your help!!!

**Chapter 4**

**September 16**

**11:11:23**

“So you’re grounded… literally,” Anya jokes and then immediately dodges the throw pillow that Lexa hurls at her. “Who would have thought! How’s it feel?”

If her eyes rolled any further back, Lexa worries they’d get stuck there. Anya is referring to the fact that Lexa was ‘the good kid’ growing up. Never talked back, never acted out, never got punished. To say that she was straight-laced would have been an understatement (although her sexual orientation was anything but.) 

Anya had been the quintessential rebel kid. Older than Lexa by two years, she had borne the brunt of their parents frustration with their own inability to balance their lives. After their parents had split (when Anya and Lexa were in high school and middle school, respectively) Anya had acted out as one would expect. 

Lexa, on the other hand, had pulled into herself - buckling down on her studies and throwing herself into her extracurricular activities.

There had been a time where Lexa thought Anya hated her. There were many venom-filled accusations flung her way from Anya — things about being ‘little miss perfect’. But then Lexa had realized Anya didn’t hate her; she just didn’t understand her. Now that they were older, they could communicate better. Anya was always communicative, just not necessarily always in the most effective way. It took Lexa a while to resign herself to the fact that Anya was always going to shoot from the hip. It’s kind of nice, actually, because Lexa never has to wonder where she stands with Anya.

For her part, Anya had to come to terms with the fact that Lexa was never going to be easy to read and had, over the years, developed other ways to figure out what was going on in her sister’s head.

In spite of their childhood differences, they are now very close.

Lexa’s dog, Titus, comes bounding in from the backyard and leaps like a massive, brindle gazelle onto Anya, nearly knocking her right off the couch. Anya yelps and somehow manages to right herself before they both sprawl on the floor.

“Good boy,” Lexa quips, laughing quietly.

Titus arranges his lanky legs under him and flops in a heap on Anya’s lap, his head on her shoulder like a huge, jowly baby. He eyes her with dopey adoration. Anya secures her arms around the dog’s muscly body and levels Lexa with a stare, the likes of which only Anya is capable of.

“But how are you doing?” 

Lexa squirms. She can’t lie to Anya. 

“Not great.” Lexa flops herself back against the recliner in an uncharacteristic expulsion of stress.

It’s an understatement. Truth be told, she’s struggling. She hasn’t been sleeping well because her mind can’t stop replaying that day over and over. When she does finally fall asleep, she’s plagued by nightmares. Most of them have to do with the crash, but others are unrelated. The theme is always the same, though: people are in danger and Lexa can’t save them.

During the day, she’s haunted by flashbacks. Every beeping or buzzing sound automatically transports her back in time to September tenth, back to the cockpit of N240PA. She sees the glide path, the obstacles. She sees the looks on the passengers’ faces, wandering around on the tarmac, eyes wide with shock as they try to process what just came to pass. She sees the airplane, battered and broken and covered with foam.

For some odd reason, it’s the memory of the airplane that makes her cry. Of course the passengers were (and always will be) her number one concern, but she just loves airplanes so much that they almost take on a personality. Like they’re giant birds or something. 

Lexa knows, rationally, that airplanes are machines and are therefore inanimate, but she can’t shake the feeling of sadness that comes from having seen her beloved N240PA, her  _ Baby, _ smashed up on the ground, helpless and sad. The front of the airplane almost looks like a face, with the windscreen being a pair of oversized, expressive eyes and the nose-cone a comical, pointy beak. It gives the airplane a zoomorphic quality that tugs at Lexa’s heartstrings every time.

“Are you sleeping? Eating?”

Anya knows her too damn well.

“I mean.. a little. Here and there.” Lexa shrugs. She’ll be damned if she’ll admit everything to her sister right now. Not that easily.

“Lex…” Anya sighs, which jostles Titus on her lap and he gives an indignant huff. “You’ve got to--”

“--I’ve got to  _ what _ , Anya?” Lexa interrupts sharply. She feels herself losing control. “‘ _ Take care of myself,’  _ are you going to say? Well, I’m trying, okay? I can’t close my eyes without seeing that runway. I can’t open them without seeing evidence of the fact that  _ I _ crashed an airplane. The fact that you’re  _ here _ right now is evidence of that!”

Lexa is raging now. Her hands are balled into fists which she’s pressing into the arms of the recliner. Her foot is jiggling wildly.

Anya and Titus both stare at her incredulously. This is very out of character for Lexa and she knows it, but she can’t  _ stop. _

“I can’t eat anything because everything tastes like cardboard, and if I do eat then I get a stomachache! I feel constantly sick, Ahn. I just… I need -- I don’t even  _ know  _ what I need!”

“What you need is to get laid.” Anya raises an eyebrow at her sister. “Release some of that pent-up energy.”

Lexa stares at Anya, agog. Jaw slack, eyes wide.

There are several seconds of very uncomfortable silence. And then Lexa comes unglued.

“Are you fucking serious?” she all but shouts. “I’m sitting here, telling you that I’m having flashbacks and nightmares, that I almost got two-hundred and some-odd people  _ killed _ in an airplane crash  _ less than a week ago _ and you are telling me I need to go find a one night stand? Are you  _ for real,  _ Anya?!”

Titus jumps off Anya’s lap and runs out the back door, evidently displeased by the argument.

“Yes,” Anya says simply. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. You are  _ so tense, _ Lex! You need to get out of your own head. Stop worrying! You can’t change anything now, so what’s the point in stewing over it? The NTSB girl… what’s her name again? Claire?”

“Clarke,” Lexa says through gritted teeth. 

“Right, Clarke,” Anya continues. “She and her team of brainiac scientists will figure out what happened to your plane, and you’ll be back in the sky in no time.”

Lexa’s nostrils flare in frustration.

“Here’s what you don’t get, Ahn: what if  _ I’m _ what happened to the plane?”

Anya scoffs. “You don’t make mistakes, Lexa. You are the most meticulous person I know. In every single aspect of life, not just flying planes.” She tosses the throw pillow from earlier back at Lexa, who bats it to the side. “Besides, you weren’t the only person in the cockpit, right?”

“Yeah, but F.O. Blake wasn’t flying.”

“No, but if there was a problem with something -- if you’d missed something or messed something up somehow -- he’d have noticed, right? You said he was a good pilot.”

Lexa nods slowly. “He is. He’s great.”

“Well, there you go. If you had fucked up, he would have told you.”

“But I didn’t fuck up!” Lexa bursts out.  _ Did I? _

Titus’s big goofy head pops around the corner, apparently hearing the lowered voices and checking if the coast is clear. He gingerly makes his way back into the room and plops himself down on Lexa’s feet, his stump-tail wagging.

Anya moves over and perches on the arm of the recliner that Lexa is sitting on the edge of. In an unusual display of tenderness, Anya puts her arm around Lexa’s shoulders and gives her a squeeze.

“I know you didn’t. You’re the one that needs convincing.”

* * *

**September 17**

**01:33:16**

The sound of Lexa’s phone vibrating on the bedside table rips her out of sleep. For a second, she is furious. Sleep is so hard to come by these days, and now when she  _ finally _ falls asleep, someone has the audacity to call her in the middle of the night. Groggily, Lexa reaches for the phone, pulling so hard that the charger that’s attached to the phone comes right out of the wall.

**_F.O. Blake_ ** **,** reads the screen.

“Hello?” Lexa sits up against the headboard, suddenly alert.

“Hi…” Bellamy’s voice is raspy on the other end of the phone. “I’m sorry to call you so late.”

“S’okay,” mumbles Lexa, rubbing her eye with one hand. “What’s going on?”

There’s a few moments of silence on the line, and in that silence Lexa hears exactly why Bellamy is calling her. She knows what he’s dealing with.

The sleeplessness.

The flashbacks.

The doubt.

The fear.

“I, uh…” Bellamy falters. “I’ve just been… having some trouble.”

Lexa sighs. “I know. Me too.”

“Am I crazy, Wood?” There’s grief in Bellamy’s voice and it makes Lexa’s heart ache. “Am I crazy for being fucked up over what happened? I mean, we’re fine. The passengers are fine. The crew is fine. Everything’s fine except for the plane, but  _ I’m _ not fine. I’m a fucking wreck.”

“No, you’re not crazy.” 

“Are you sure? ‘Cause I sure feel like it. Echo - my wife - she doesn’t get it. She thinks I should just ‘shake it off’ or ‘get over it.’”

Lexa feels for him. It reminds her of her conversation with Anya the previous day. She knows that Bellamy’s wife is pregnant and due in a matter of weeks, so her hormones probably aren’t helping matters.

“I know. My sister basically said the same thing to me yesterday,” Lexa says. She crosses her legs at the ankles which jostles Titus, sleeping at the foot of the bed. He gives her the hairy eyeball and dramatically flops onto his other side. “She told me to stop worrying.”

Bellamy laughs, but it’s a mirthless laugh. “Sounds about right.”

They are silent for a moment. Then, Bellamy - “we did everything right, Captain. My mind always tries to go to the ‘what-ifs’ like… what if we missed part of a checklist, or what if we didn’t think of something but… I  _ know _ we didn’t.”

“Lexa.”

“What?”

“You can call me Lexa when we’re talking like this.” Lexa feels like she needs to drop him a line, a string, something,  _ anything. _ “And yes, I do the ‘what-if’ game all the time, too. What if I could have done something differently? What if I could have detected the problem before we were basically on the ground? What if--”

“You mean ‘we.’” Bellamy interrupts her..

“No, I mean  _ me, _ ” replies Lexa with a firm tone. “ _ I _ was the captain. Everything, even you, was my responsibility. If you made a mistake, it was my responsibility to catch it. But you didn’t make a mistake.”

“How can you be so sure?” Bellamy almost yells. “I don’t know  _ what _ we did anymore! I’ve gone over it so many times, and pictured so many different things that it’s like I can’t even remember what actually happened!” His voice cracks a little at the end and Lexa thinks he’s crying.

“Listen to me,” she says, her voice hard. “Bellamy, listen.” She’s never called him by his first name before, and it seems to get his attention. “I have flown with many, many different people over the years. Most of them are great pilots and great people. And guess what?  _ You _ are one of those great pilots.  _ You _ are a great person. You are confident, skilled and rational. So am I. If we had made a mistake that day, we would know it deep down. If one of us had messed something up, the other would have realized it. If you’d messed up, I would tell you so. And if I’d messed up, you’d tell me. We are a great team, Bellamy, and when this is all over, I really hope we can fly together again.”

He’s silent.

She continues. “I trust you. Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” he whispers.

“Good. When we meet back up in Washington D.C. for the official inquiry, I’ll buy you a drink, deal?”

Bellamy laughs wetly. “Deal. And Lexa?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks.”

She can almost hear him smiling on the other end of the phone.

“Anytime. Good night, Bellamy.”

* * *

**September 20**

**18:01:55**

Lexa opens the front door and promptly bursts out laughing.

“Ahn,” she wheezes. “What in the world are you doing?”

Anya is standing there, arms laden with gifts and shopping bags, a bouquet of balloons tied to her wrist.

“Coming to throw my nephew a birthday party, what else?” She breezes past Lexa, accidentally assaulting her with the balloons on her way by. 

Titus, the ‘nephew’ in question, comes skidding around the corner from the kitchen, having heard Anya’s voice. He takes one look at the balloons and does a full one-eighty, flailing back around the corner in a flurry of lanky legs, floppy ears and flappy jowls, much to the amusement of the sisters.

“Okay, okay, so he’s not a fan of balloons,” Anya drops the gifts and bags on the sofa and unceremoniously shoves the balloons into the hall closet. Titus peeks warily around the corner and, seeing the threat has vanished, bounds eagerly over to Anya. He leaps into her arms like a human child and smothers her with kisses.

“How you always manage to catch him so gracefully I will never know,” Lexa muses. “What on Earth is all this stuff?” She peeks into one of the bags and sees no fewer than ten dog bones of various sizes and shapes.

Setting Titus down, Anya joins Lexa at the couch and opens the rest of the bags. “It’s Titus’s birthday, so I spoiled him.”

“No shit!” Lexa laughs. “There’s like, two hundred bucks worth of stuff here.”

“Well, he deserves it.”

Lexa watches as Anya flits around, hanging up crepe paper streamers and HAPPY BIRTHDAY banners all around the living room and kitchen. She knows Anya is trying to distract her, trying to keep her spirits up, and she has to admit it’s working. She laughs harder than she’s laughed in weeks when Anya blows one of those little party horns and Titus tears out of the kitchen, terrified.

“He’s such a dork,” Anya says, looking after him fondly. 

_ “You’re _ a dork,” Lexa retorts. “Throwing a birthday party for a dog.”

“Yeah, well,” flapping her hand dismissively, Anya pulls out her phone and opens the Food Delivery app. “Did you eat dinner yet? I’m starving.”

Lexa knows that Anya is well aware that she hasn’t eaten dinner. She hasn’t eaten breakfast or lunch either. She has no appetite. And she knows that it shows on her dwindling frame. Anya and Lexa, while having very different facial features, had always had similar body types: tall, lean and muscular. But now Lexa is just thin. She hasn’t been to the gym since the accident.

“Uh, no,” she stammers.

“Great. I’m ordering pizza. You want pineapple?”

For some reason, the fact that Anya knows Lexa likes pineapple on her pizza makes tears spring to Lexa’s eyes.

_ What is wrong with me? _ She thinks. She’s never had trouble controlling her emotions before. First it happened in the interview room with Clarke, then a few random times after that, and now again with Anya.

She nods, since the lump in her throat is preventing her from speaking.

Anya pretends not to notice Lexa’s sudden discomfort. “Done,” she says, tapping on her screen.

\---

They eat pizza, drink cheap beer, and watch a stupid, funny movie. Neither of them had seen Get Him to the Greek before, and it is exactly the comic relief Lexa needs. She must really be stressed because her emotions are all over the place. First crying over the pizza, then she can’t stop laughing over the ‘Ring ‘Round’ song sung by Jackie Q.

Having not had a drop of alcohol in several weeks, Lexa is a lightweight, both literally and figuratively. By the end of the evening, she and Anya are belting out the lyrics to ‘Bangers, Beans and Mash’ at full volume. Lexa hasn’t felt this free since… well, a long time. She didn’t know she needed this. Fortunately, Anya did. 

Titus looks at them as though they’ve lost their minds, and Lexa thinks he might not be wrong.

The sisters fall asleep on the couch at nine o’clock, and for the first time in a long time, Lexa doesn’t have a single nightmare.

  
  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The calm(ish) before the storm... 
> 
> ***RATING CHANGE!*** There be (mild) smut here. But there will be more later!
> 
> Please note I've added "EST" (Eastern Standard Time) and "PST" (Pacific Standard Time) to the time stamps. Some of these are bicoastal happenings. 
> 
> Thank you Underthecovers for all that you do for me! I adore you! xo
> 
> This chapter brought to you by Vegemite. ;) And Happy Halloween!!!

**September 25**

**13:07:37 (PST)**

The roaring of airplane engines had always been comforting to Lexa. She didn’t often fly as a passenger anymore, but on the few occasions that she did, she had always been able to completely relax, putting her trust in the flight crew. It helped that she usually flew on Polaris Air - this meant that she knew what kind of training the pilots had and had faith in their abilities.

This time, however, the sound of the engines is not comforting. She is neither flying on Polaris  _ nor _ relaxed.

“Nervous flier?” the gentleman in the middle seat says as he gazes pointedly at Lexa’s white-knuckled grip on the armrests.

Lexa can’t speak. She wants to tell him she’s a pilot; that she’s flown thousands upon thousands of hours. That she could walk up to the front and fly this very airplane if she wanted to (it’s a 737 so she might be a little rusty but it would come back in no time, she’s certain). But all of that is too hard to explain given the circumstances, so instead she just nods, squeezing her eyes closed.

“Ah,” the man responds knowingly. “I get it. I was nervous for the longest time. You get used to it, though. This airline has a great safety record.”

_ Not as good as my airline, _ Lexa thinks. But is that even still true?  _ She _ crashed an airplane earlier this month… what had  _ that _ done to Polaris’ safety record?

Lexa thinks she might vomit. She opens her eyes and stares straight ahead at the back of the seat in front of her, pressing her head back against the headrest. She wills herself to take deep, slow breaths. She can feel the panic rising, the bitter taste of bile creeping up into her mouth. 

The airplane speeds down the runway and gracefully tilts backwards, wheels leaving the runway and, Lexa knows, tucking up under the belly of the aircraft like a giant bird tucking up its feet for flight.

_ V-1… rotate… positive climb, gear up. _

She knows the words that are being spoken in the cockpit and is equal parts devastated that she can’t be the one saying them and terrified at the idea of ever saying them again.

“Hey, let’s distract you. What’s your name? My name is Wells.” Wells holds out his hand for Lexa to shake.

Hurriedly, Lexa shakes his hand and then returns to her deathgrip on the armrest. 

“Alexandria.” 

She’s not sure why she doesn’t say ‘Lexa’. There’s a part of her that thinks he might recognize the name, even though there’s been very sparse media coverage that includes her name. Usually, if she’s referenced directly, it’s as ‘Captain Wood’ rather than ‘Lexa,’ and as far as she knows her picture has never been used, but you can never be too careful.

“Nice to meet you, Alexandria. Are you from the Seattle area?”

“Portland, actually,” Lexa grits out. “Couldn’t get a direct flight out of there, though, so I drove up to Seattle.”

“Makes sense,” Wells says, his voice relaxed and easy. “I’m from D.C., born and raised. My parents still live there. I was just out on the west coast for business. Never been to Portland, though.”

Lexa is surprised to find that his idle chatter is actually helping. She feels her body slowly starting to relax, her grip on the armrests loosening.

For a second, anyway. Her hands tighten back up when Wells says, “so what do you do for a living, Alexandria?”

Lexa considers the back of the seat in front of her, following the lines of the plastic with her eyes.

“Uh, I’m kind of… in between jobs at the moment.” She’s momentarily impressed with herself for coming up with that answer so quickly. She almost chuckles because this whole situation is so ridiculous. And a quick deflection, “What about you?” 

“I sell health insurance.” He rolls his eyes. “Riveting, I know. But it pays the bills.”

Not quite able to bring herself to smile, Lexa gives a small nod. “I’ll bet it does.”

She wonders when she stopped being able to talk to people. She was never exactly a chatterbox, but she was at least not completely socially inept. It seems like now the only time she can carry on a conversation is with Anya or Titus. Unless asked a direct question, she falters, flounders and flails. Sitting here talking to Wells is so awkward it might as well be a blind date, set up by a well-meaning acquaintance who hasn’t yet figured out that Lexa is only into women.

“Family?” Wells is persistent, she’ll give him that

“Uh, a dog. And my sister lives near me.”

“That’s great! Tell me about your dog.”

Again, in spite of herself, Lexa finds herself relaxing at the flow of conversation. Or maybe it’s that talking about Titus makes her smile. He’s such a goofy dog that she has an abundance of stories to tell about him:

How she had to hand-feed him as a baby because he was so sickly (he had a parasite called  _ giardia _ that is fairly common in puppies) and had constant tummy aches.

How he was afraid of this one particular octopus-shaped Christmas tree ornament and would bark incessantly at it, so Lexa had had to put it on the very top of the tree.

How he had an affinity for chewing up electrical cords.

Wells laughs genuinely at each anecdote and Lexa pulls out her phone to show him a photo of Titus.

“What a good boy!” Wells exclaims, looking at the picture taken the other day at Titus’s impromptu birthday party. Anya had somehow managed to get a party hat on him and had taken a picture of him with his ‘birthday cake’ that she had conjured up out of peanut butter, kibble, shredded carrot and yogurt.

“He is. What about you? Family?” Lexa isn’t ready for this conversation to be over yet.

“Yeah, I’ve got a son. Weston. He’s five. He’s at his mom’s house while I travel.” Wells pulls out his phone and turns it toward Lexa. A bright-eyed, smiling little boy grins at her from the lock screen.

Smiling, Lexa says, “He’s a cutie.”

“Thanks. His mom and I split parenting time fifty-fifty. He’s a handful for sure! Luckily for us, my parents live in the area. My dad’s a therapist and my mom works in a flower shop. They really help us out.”

“That’s good…” Lexa murmurs.

She’s thinking about her own parents now. They weren’t around much, especially after they split. Anya and Lexa lived with their mom and spent every other weekend with their dad, and most holidays. If their mom wasn’t working one of her billions of jobs, she was out with whoever her boyfriend was at the time.

Their dad, on the other hand, hardly ever went anywhere. Despite that, he was never really present either; too lost in the bottle or the powder, take your pick. 

Her childhood best friend, Rowan (who, in his high-school rebellious phase had decided to drop the W from his name and still, to this day, goes by ‘Roan’ and has the audacity to be upset whenever anyone mispronounces it and rhymes it with ‘throne’,) and his mother Nia lived next door to Lexa and Anya’s mother. Nia acted as sort of a stand-in parent for the girls during their late-elementary and middle school years - made sure they had enough food, had clothes that weren’t ripped and so forth. Thinking back, Lexa is pretty sure that Nia supplied most of their Christmas gifts, too. 

The airplane bounces a little as it flies through some mild turbulence. Now it’s Wells’s turn to grip the armrest. Lexa laughs.

“Nervous flier?” she jokes.

Wells gives her a mock glare. “Okay, so turbulence still makes me nervous.”

Lexa laughs again. “You’re not the only one. Turbulence is a really common fear for passengers. Don’t worry though, the airframe is designed to take on way more turbulence than the average airplane encounters during flight. Turbulence, or just ‘bumpy air,’ is almost never the main cause of an air accident. Weather-related turbulence is slightly more dangerous, but still not usually a cause for concern.”

Wells is looking at her with his jaw slightly open and Lexa realizes what she’s just said.

“Um.. I read a lot,” is her lame attempt at an explanation.

It’s very clear that Wells doesn’t believe her.

“Okay,” he says slowly, “I’m not sure about that, but I’m a stranger on a plane so you don’t owe me any explanations.”

They are quiet for a few minutes. Then Wells says, “Are you really a nervous flier?”

“No,” Lexa responds, but says nothing more.

She must fall asleep at some point, the dull roar of the engines acting as a white noise machine. She’s briefly jarred awake by the  _ bing-bong _ of the Flight-Attendant Call System, but the gentle motion of the airplane lulls her back to sleep right away. Against all odds, she sleeps soundly. So soundly, in fact, that she doesn’t wake up until the wheels actually touch down on the runway.

“Hey, welcome back,” Wells says as Lexa groggily opens her eyes. “That landing a little rough for you?”

For some reason, Lexa bristles at his joke. Landing is immensely difficult and most passengers have no idea. If Lexa had a dollar for every time a passenger complained about a landing, she could retire today. 

“Well,” she says, slightly tersely, “it’s not the easiest feat to land a sixty-odd-ton machine on a narrow strip of concrete at a few hundred miles per hour.”

Wells’ eyes widen - he’s taken aback. “That’s probably true.. I never thought of it like that.”

“Sorry,” Lexa sighs. “No, the landing was fine. Good, actually.” And, as an afterthought, “I know the pilots would, uh, really like to hear that. That their landing was good, I mean.”

“I’ll tell them on the way out,” Wells promises.

As Lexa gathers her carry-on luggage, Wells hands her a business card.  _ Wells Jaha, Insurance Agent. _ His cell phone number is on there, too.

“Listen,” he says. “I don’t know what’s happening for you, or what your plan is while you’re in D.C., but I get the feeling this isn’t a leisure trip for you.”

Lexa must have an odd look on her face because Wells laughs.

“Don’t worry,” he reassures her. “I’m  _ not _ asking you on a date. I, uh, get the feeling you’re not into me that way. And that’s totally cool. But… I want you to know that if you need anything while you’re in the city, I’m a call or a text away, okay? A ride, a friend, whatever. I’m here.”

Tears well up in Lexa’s eyes. Who is this man - this stranger who dropped her a line just when she thought she was going to be swept out to sea and lost forever? The giant lump in her throat prevents her from getting any words out, so she just nods her head and smiles wanly. She hopes it gets the message across -  _ thank you, thank you, thank you. _

Wells shoulders his messenger bag and starts to move up the aisle toward the front.

“Take care, Alexandria,” he smiles at her over his shoulder.

Lexa almost sobs right there in the aisle next to row seventeen, but gathers herself and her belongings and follows Wells.

As they de-plane, she hears him up ahead, complimenting the pilots who are standing by the exit.

“Great landing, guys. Top notch.”

Lexa smiles bigger than she’s smiled in many, many days.

  
  
  


**September 25**

**20:28:51 (EST)**

Lexa’s phone rings as soon as she steps into the lobby of her hotel. It’s not a number she recognizes.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Lexa. It’s Clarke Griffin.”

Lexa wedges the phone between her shoulder and her ear and fumbles to get her ID and credit card out to hand to the guy behind the front desk. “Wood, Alexandria,” she mouths to him. Into the phone she says, “Clarke, hi.”

“Are you getting settled in your hotel okay?”

Lexa thinks it’s nice of Clarke to ask that. She was expecting the lead investigator to be all business but it seems as though Clarke has a heart in there, too.

“Just checking in.”

“Great. Can you come by my office tomorrow morning? I have a few more questions I want to ask you and some information to go over before the inquiry on Wednesday.”

The desk guy hands Lexa her room key. She nods a thank you and moves toward the elevator.

“Sure. What time?”

“Is nine o’clock okay? I don’t want you to be too jet-lagged… oh, I guess you’re used to that, aren’t you?” Clarke laughs softly and Lexa finds herself wanting to hear that sound again.

Lexa laughs too. “Yes, I am. Nine o’clock is fine. Is it the address on your business card?”

There’s a loud thump and Clarke swears softly.

“You okay?” Lexa asks. She smiles. This woman seems to be kind of clumsy.

There’s some rustling. “Yeah, fine, sorry. I dropped a paperweight. Yes, it’s the address on my business card. Take the elevator to the twentieth floor and make a right down the hall. It’s the third office on the right after you round the corner.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

After they hang up, Lexa enters her room. 

The NTSB is paying for her hotel room, so Lexa had half expected it to be some cheap motel; she doesn’t exactly have the utmost faith in the government. However, she had been surprised to find that she was booked into a Hilton in downtown Washington D.C. and had then expected a basic, bare-minimum hotel room on a low floor without much of a view.

She is shocked to find her room is on the second to the top floor and she can see the top of the Washington Monument from the window. There is a queen bed with a white, downy comforter and far too many fluffy pillows. A flat-screen television, dresser and mini-fridge are lined up on the wall opposite the bed. In the corner there is a very comfortable-looking chair adorned with decorative throw pillows.

Lexa drops her suitcase and carry-on bag by the door and walks through to the bathroom. Another shock awaits her there.

The bathroom has both a shower and a small jacuzzi tub. There is ambient lighting coming from somewhere underneath the countertops, casting gentle shadows over the marble features in the bathroom. The room is warm. Lexa feels as though the whole place is wrapping her in a big, fuzzy blanket.

She thinks she might have a very hard time leaving this room.

Walking back out into the main room, Lexa spots a piece of cardstock propped up against the lamp on the bedside table. She picks it up and reads -

_ Lexa, _

_ Please enjoy your stay as much as possible. _

_ I know the circumstances are tough. _

_ You will find a meal voucher on the _

_ back of this card. You will get a new _

_ voucher each week, if needed. Breakfast _

_ is always complementary _

_ If you have any questions, please _

_ call my office and my assistant _

_ will be happy to help. _

_ -Clarke Griffin, NTSB _

Lexa finds herself smiling in spite of the circumstances. When she flies - or,  _ flew _ \- she often stays in Hilton hotels but this one is by far the nicest. She almost feels guilty for being excited to stay here.

Before Lexa can think too much about that, her phone rings again. This time, it’s Anya.

“Sistaaaaaa!” Anya crows, paying homage to their shared love of the movie Hocus Pocus.

“Hey,” Lexa says, again holding the phone with her shoulder so she can start to unpack her suitcase into the empty dresser drawers.

“How was your flight?”

Lexa considers the question for a moment. More like she considers how to  _ answer _ it.

“It was…”

How  _ was _ her flight? Nerve-wracking? Familiar? Awful? Routine?  _ D, all of the above, _ thinks Lexa. But she knows that if she answers with any of those adjectives that Anya will ask questions and Lexa really isn’t sure she has the mental energy to deal with that right now.

“...Fine,” she finishes lamely.

For a moment, Lexa thinks Anya might not be satisfied with that answer, but she seems to accept it and move on.

“How’s the hotel?”

“Great!” Lexa almost gushes. “The room is really nice. It’s got a jacuzzi tub and everything.”

Anya hoots. “Wow! Maybe you’d better consider my, ah,  _ advice _ then!”

“Anya!” Lexa scolds, but she’s smiling. She sort of wishes Anya could be here. However, in spite of her certainty that neither she nor Bellamy did anything wrong on September tenth, she really has no idea what this week has in store for them. If things don’t go well, she doesn’t want anyone around to be privy to her falling apart. Not even Anya.

“I’m just saying - Titus,  _ no!  _ \- it would take your mind off things.”

“What’s Titus doing?” Lexa misses her dog immensely at that moment and is also grateful for the segue into another topic of conversation.

“Trying to eat the edge of the couch.”

“Typical.”

“Yeah. What time is it there? Ten thirty?” 

Lexa glances at the clock. “Yeah. I have a meeting with Clarke in the morning so I need to get some sleep.” And as an afterthought - “Or try to, anyway.”

“Check the outer pocket of your suitcase,” Anya instructs cryptically, with a tinge of something in her voice that instantly makes Lexa nervous.

“Ahn, what did you do?” 

Lexa unzips the large rectangular outer pocket of her suitcase and peers inside. It’s empty. 

“The  _ other _ outer pocket.”

If anyone else had said that just then, it might have seemed strange. But Anya and Lexa had developed a very close connection over the years. Once they stopped being constantly at odds with one another, they had become almost like an extension of each other.

So of course Anya would know that Lexa was looking in the wrong pocket even though she is thousands of miles away and cannot see her.

Unzipping the smaller, deeper rectangular pocket, Lexa feels her face turn the shade of a tomato.

“ANYA!” 

Lexa glares at her phone. She knows that Anya can’t see her, but that doesn’t matter, as was just evidenced by the fact that Anya knew which pocket Lexa looked in. Lexa holds up the sparkly, purple, vaguely-phallic vibrator and sighs.

Anya laughs uproariously on the other end of the line. “Hey,” she says between guffaws, “you need to relax, Lex. This will help. And since I know you’re not going to take a page out of my book and go find a  _ real _ person to help with that, I figured this was the next best thing.”

Sighing again, Lexa tosses the vibrator on the bed. “Okay, Anya. Thank you.”

“Go. Eat some food, take a hot bath,  _ relax yourself, _ and get some sleep.”

“All right. Give Titus a kiss for me. And don’t forget to put plain yogurt on-”

“-On his kibble, I know.  _ Lexa. _ Everything is fine here. Go. If you need to call me, you know where to find me.”

Lexa squeezes her eyes closed. She wishes she was home with her dog, going to sleep to prepare for an early morning flight. Not here in D.C., going to sleep to prepare to meet her fate this week before a panel of experts. 

But here she is. She squares her shoulders. She is the Captain. And she will bear the brunt of the blame if need be.

**September 26**

**06:30:00 (EST)**

The beeping of the alarm on Lexa’s phone jerks her awake.

Her body is covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Her heart is racing. 

But it wasn’t a nightmare or a flashback. She is not scared.

Snoozing her alarm, Lexa closes her eyes and wills the dream she was having to return to the surface. She lets herself sink deeper into the soft mattress, her head falling into the downy pillow, her breathing evening out….

_ “Lexa… oh, Lexa…” _

_ A mess of blonde hair is spilled across the pillows. The woman’s eyes are squeezed tightly closed, her back bowed and head thrown back. Her mouth is open in a soft ‘o’ shape, her cupid’s bow lips parted and swollen from kisses. _

_ Lexa crawls up the blonde’s lithe body. She slips one arm behind the woman’s neck, cradling her. Her other hand rubs slow but firm circles around a stiff and, no doubt, aching clit. _

_ “Fuck.. Lexa… I’m going to come.” _

_ “Open your eyes, baby,” Lexa begs. “Please. I want to see you.” _

_ Lexa finds herself staring into deep oceans of blue. _

_ Very familiar blue. _

_ Clarke Griffin. NTSB. _

_ And those startling blue eyes never leave hers as Clarke comes undone against Lexa’s hand. _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Underthecovers for your help, as always! 
> 
> Disclaimer: I know almost nothing about how NTSB investigations actually work!!! But this is fiction so.. let's suspend disbelief, okay? ;) 
> 
> Also, I understand that Clarke is not acting like an actual NTSB investigator might act all the time, but again, this is fiction. 
> 
> Thanks for reading. Comments and kudos make my heart happy. Xo.

**September 26**

**09:00:01**

“Clarke?”

Lexa hears a _thump!_ and an “ow!” followed by a soft expletive and she bites the inside of her lip to keep from laughing out loud. 

Clarke stands up from behind her polished, black wooden desk, rubbing the back of her head. Her blonde hair is pulled into a bun on top of her head and she’s wearing black slacks with vertical pinstripes and a gray blazer over a white shirt. She has a pair of black-rimmed glasses on, which she pushes back up her nose with her index finger.

“Lexa! Hi! Come on in. Sorry, I was just trying to fix one of the panels on the underside of my desk. It keeps coming off.” She laughs. “Maybe I should make the government buy me a new desk. Maybe one that isn’t secondhand.”

Smiling, Lexa walks the rest of the way into Clarke’s office. She glances around. The desk is right in front of a huge window with a nice view of the city. Two black leather chairs sit facing the desk. To the right there is a credenza, also black. Many papers and folders are on top of the credenza, but they are all stacked neatly. Also on the credenza are several books propped between bookends that look like two halves of a wiener dog, and a framed photo of Clarke and an older woman smiling in front of a lit Christmas tree.

On the other side of the room is a tall bookshelf centered on the wall. The bottom three shelves are full of binders and books that are in order from tallest to shortest. The top two shelves are photos and knickknacks. Lexa fights the urge to walk over to it and examine them. You can tell a lot about a person based on what they choose to display in their office.

A huge piece of abstract art - a bunch of black, white and gray squares and circles - is on the wall.

In the corner to the left of the door is a hanging basket chair with a wild, fuzzy, rainbow cushion. It’s the only pop of color in the room and Lexa must have a quizzical look on her face because Clarke says, “That’s my vacation chair.”

“Your vacation chair?” Lexa echoes, confused.

“Yeah,” Clarke says, picking up an empty Starbucks cup off the desk and lobbing it into the garbage can. “It’s - _yesss, three points! -_ where I go to sit when my brain needs a vacation from reality. I put some music on and sit in that chair and sway, imagining I’m a palm frond on a tree on a beach somewhere, waving in the wind without a care in the world.”

Eyes wide, Lexa is staring delightedly at Clarke Griffin. Everything this woman does, from the way she celebrates her basketball skills to the imagery she uses to relax, is so unique and unapologetically _real_ that Lexa wishes she could spend more time with her. She wants to ask her lots of questions, but knows that it’s not her place.

“So,” Clarke says, leaning on her desk. “How’s the hotel?”

“It’s great,” Lexa says appreciatively. “Thank you so much.”

“I told the big boss that he’d better put you up in a nice room.” Clarke’s blue eyes are twinkling and her lips are pulled into a bemused smirk. 

The unique blue of Clarke’s eyes suddenly pulls Lexa back into her dream from early this morning.

_“Lexa… oh, Lexa…”_

Blood rushes to Lexa’s cheeks as she quickly tries to shake the mental image. Returning to the topic at hand, she says, “And the big boss listens to you?”

Clarke feigns indignance. “Of course he does! I’m his best investigator! I’m the one that’s going to solve all the hard cases and push the papers across his desk, and all he has to do is sign off on them. So yes, he wants to keep me happy.”

Lexa’s mouth moves faster than her judgement. “Is my case one of the hard ones?” 

For a moment, Clarke doesn’t speak. She tilts her head slightly to the side as she looks at Lexa, considering the question. A shadow of uncertainty seems to pass across Clarke’s features for a brief second, before clearing away so quickly that Lexa isn’t sure she actually saw it at all.

“You call it like you see it, don’t you?” Clarke asks. “You don’t mince words.”

Lexa shrugs. “Not really. I’m a pilot and I was in the military. Being indirect wouldn’t do me any favors in either situation.” She tucks her hair behind her ears. “Saying the wrong thing or taking too long to say the right thing could have disastrous consequences.”

Clarke nods her head for several seconds, never taking her eyes off Lexa’s face. Then she glances down at her desk and lifts up a legal pad. She flips to the second, then third, then fourth page, her eyes skimming along the lines as she goes. Then she flaps the legal pad back down on the desk and looks Lexa square in the eye again.

“Yes,” is the simple reply. “Your case is one of the hard ones.”

It feels as though all the air is sucked out of Lexa’s lungs in that instant. She can hear her heartbeat in her ears, a sort of muffled _whoosh-whoosh_ sound. She knows that if Clarke is saying her case is one of the hard ones then it means they haven’t made much progress on figuring out what happened to her airplane that day.

“Have a seat,” Clarke says, and Lexa wonders if Clarke can tell she’s feeling like she’s going to pass out.

Sitting down heavily in one of the chairs facing Clarke’s desk, Lexa crosses one leg over the other and leans back. Her posture appears relaxed but Lexa’s insides are churning. She has a distinct feeling that Clarke is about to say something that will change the course of her stay here in Washington D.C.

And Clarke does.

“I feel like…” Clarke starts, sitting down in her big, swiveling office chair, also leaning back and resting her elbows on the armrests. “I feel like you are a very stoic and driven person.”

Lexa doesn’t answer. She was a military pilot, for God’s sake, and now an airline Captain at thirty-one. To say she is stoic and driven is an understatement of elephantine proportion.

“So therefore, I feel like I can level with you.”

Clarke’s blue eyes pierce into Lexa’s green ones.

And suddenly, Lexa realizes why she’s so drawn to Clarke’s eyes - they are the same vibrant blue as the airplanes in Polaris Air’s fleet. A brief image of N240PA smashed up on the ground, its normal blue color obscured by foam, flits into Lexa’s mind and she blinks hard to clear it.

“Okay.” Lexa’s voice is just this side of a whisper.

“I have no idea what happened to your airplane.”

Even though she had been expecting Clarke to say that, Lexa’s stomach drops. She lets out a breath she hadn’t meant to hold. Inhaling deeply, she closes her eyes for a brief second, trying to regain composure.

Clarke turns her hands palm up on the desk. “Only the initial reports are in. The flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder… of course we have the entire airplane to examine. But everything looks, as you said, _normal._ There was fuel in the engines, the fuel pumps were working, you guys had the airplane configured perfectly for landing. So what the hell happened?” 

Lexa knows Clarke isn’t really asking her that question, but she shrugs anyway. She opens her mouth to say something but she closes it again almost right away because there isn’t anything she _can_ say.

“I listened to the CVR myself.” Clarke’s eyes are wide behind her glasses. “You guys had, like, _no_ time to react.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe you got that airplane down like you did.”

“Neither can I, actually,” Lexa says, and she finds herself laughing for some odd reason. It’s like the sheer absurdity of the whole situation is bubbling up and over and out of her mouth in a giggle. She feels a bit hysterical. “It doesn’t even feel like it happened to _me_ half the time.”

“I’m sure,” says Clarke, folding her hands on top of her desk. 

At that moment, Clarke’s desk phone rings.

“Ah,” Clarke reaches for it. “This is one of the reasons I asked you here, actually. This is the Advisor for your airline.”

Clarke lifts the phone to her ear. “Clarke Griffin,” she says into the receiver. A moment passes. “Uh-huh, yes, she’s in my office now. May I put you on speakerphone?”

The caller obviously agrees to that because a second later Clarke pushes a button on the phone and says, “Okay, you’re on speaker phone now.”

A male voice blares from the speaker on the phone base. “Alexandria Wood?”

“Yes sir,” Lexa answers, leaning forward toward the desk to ensure she can be heard clearly.

“This is Marcus Kane, I'm a lawyer in Polaris' General Counsel's Office. How are you today?”

Lexa isn’t sure if his voice sounds friendly or not. She can’t get a read on him over the phone. She’s never met him before, or even heard of him. Or a General Counsels Office, for that matter.

“Just fine, sir, thank you.” Lexa glances at Clarke who is watching her carefully.

“Super. Listen, first of all, I want to tell you not to say _anything_ to anyone without legal counsel present. Don’t give any interviews or answer any questions.”

Blinking, Lexa looks again at Clarke. This time, Clarke’s facial expression is different; her lips are pursed and her nostrils are flared. _She’s pissed,_ Lexa thinks, slightly amused and slightly terrified. She doesn’t know Clarke Griffin well but she doesn’t seem like the kind of person Lexa would want to piss off.

“Mister Kane,” Clarke interrupts, “surely you don’t mean to say that Lexa can’t answer _my_ questions. I’m the lead investigator for the NTSB, and -”

“I know exactly who you are and that is _exactly_ what I’m telling her, Miss Griffin. Until we can get her legal counsel over there, she needs to not answer anything at all. To anyone.”

Clarke is staring at the phone on her desk as though it had just grown legs and started doing the can-can. Her mouth is slightly open and her eyes are narrowed just the tiniest bit. Lexa waits, holding her breath.

“ _Mister_ Kane,” Clarke says venomously after a second, “you _do_ understand that this is a time sensitive case, do you not? Evidence could be disappearing from the airplane _as we speak._ If Lexa has any information that might help direct my people to the right place to look for answers, you _certainly_ wouldn’t want her to withhold that, would you? Especially if the evidence were to point to some kind of malfunction of the aircraft itself, since that would then absolve your pilots of any responsibility and greatly reduce the amount of liability your airline would face.”

Lexa almost starts laughing. _Note to self,_ she thinks, _definitely do not ever piss off Clarke Griffin._ This woman is a firecracker. 

The line is quiet for a moment as Marcus Kane tries to figure out what to say next.

“How’s the stock in your airline right now, Mister Kane?” Clarke is sitting forward in her chair, her elbow propped on the desk and her chin resting on her fist. She looks almost relaxed. 

“Uh, well…”

“Dropping? Oh, I’m _sorry_ to hear that.” Clarke’s voice is dripping with fake sympathy. “Sure would be nice if we could figure out what happened to that plane soon, wouldn’t it?”

“Captain Wood?” Marcus Kane addresses Lexa now, seemingly coming to terms with the fact that he’s getting nowhere with Clarke.

“Sir,” Lexa responds. Her lips are still twitching with amusement and Clarke smiles at her over the desk.

“Your legal counsel will be there by this afternoon. Do not answer _any_ questions until then, are we clear?”

Clarke’s eyes roll dramatically and she leans forward, flattening her hands one on top of the other on the desktop and dropping her forehead onto them.

“Clear, sir,” Lexa sighs. “But sir, I have no problem answering questions. With all due respect, I know First Officer Blake and I didn’t cause that crash, so -”

Marcus Kane interrupts. “And how exactly do you know that?” His voice is not kind. “Do you have answers as to what happened, then? Because until we find out definitively that you and Blake didn’t cause that accident, I can’t have you back in the sky. At least not behind the wheel of a plane.”

Lexa _really_ wants to tell Kane that planes don’t have ‘steering wheels’ so she couldn’t really be behind the wheel; that really he should say ‘behind the column’ or ‘behind the yoke’ or even ‘beside the joystick’ if one flies Airbuses but she knows that saying any of those things would be detrimental.

And besides that, her blood is running cold because what if no one can ever prove that it wasn’t pilot error that caused the crash of Polaris Air 387? Clarke said just minutes ago that she has no idea what happened. This could mean that Lexa might never fly again.

“Have her counsel here by this afternoon. I need to ask her more questions before the inquiry.” Clarke ends the call without waiting for Kane to say goodbye. She turns to Lexa and immediately notices the look of terror on Lexa’s face. “Are you okay?”

It’s as if Lexa’s lungs have a mind of their own. Her breathing rate starts to increase and she can’t do anything to slow it down. It feels as though she’s breathing through a straw - each inhale only gets a fraction of the oxygen she needs. She’s suffocating right here in Clarke’s office.

“I - I… I have to go,” Lexa blurts out and leaps up from her chair. “I’m sorry.”

She’s going to fall apart. And she will be damned if she’s going to do it right in front of Clarke.

She turns and bolts from the office.

  
  


**September 26**

**09:44:10**

Lexa isn’t sure where she is going. It’s like her feet are just moving and the rest of her is coming along for the ride. She turns aimlessly down street after street, getting herself hopelessly lost in the grid of Washington D.C. 

_Who am I if I’m not a pilot? What do I do if I can’t fly airplanes?_ The thoughts race through her mind, dispossessing her of the ability to think rationally.

The lack of physical activity over the past few weeks catches up with Lexa. She leans against the corner of a building, panting heavily, the sound traffic and smell of exhaust flooding her senses. She bends forward at the waist, willing herself to take deep breaths.

“Lexa?” 

A voice comes from somewhere behind her. She shoots upright and spins around.

Standing there on the sidewalk, wearing a hoodie, jeans, a beanie and glasses, is Bellamy Blake. Her First Officer.

In this context, it takes Lexa almost a full five seconds to recognize him. His hands are shoved down in his pockets and his hair flops in his eyes; he looks nothing like the put-together First Officer who, sixteen days ago, had been right beside her as they endured one of the most stressful, terrifying and traumatic experiences of their entire lives.

It’s not that Lexa isn’t familiar with life-or-death situations - she was in the military, after all. She flew planes into dangerous situations, her survival never guaranteed. But the crash of Polaris Air 387 was very different. It wasn’t just her on that plane. There were 221 passengers, 6 flight attendants and Bellamy, and she was responsible for the safety of _every last one of them._

Straightening up, Lexa tries to hide the wild fear she knows is visible in her eyes.

“I… uh…” Lexa stutters. She doesn’t stutter. She’s a Captain, damnit, and Captains never stutter.

“It’s okay,” Bellamy says quietly, stepping forward and gripping Lexa’s shoulder. He looks into her eyes. “I know. Come on, it’s cold out here. Let’s go get a coffee or something.”

**September 26**

**09:52:59**

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” 

Once again, Lexa and Bellamy are sitting across a small table from one another. It reminds Lexa of that first day in the airport, having lunch with Bellamy before the first leg of their shift, neither of them knowing that twenty four hours later their lives would change forever.

Lexa clutches her coffee cup. Her hands are cold in spite of the mild temperature outside. The warmth from the cup sends tingles through her chilled fingers.

“I met with Ms. Griffin,” Lexa begins, but stops. She’s not sure how much she should say. Until Marcus Kane’s phone call, it hadn’t occurred to Lexa to not say certain things to certain people. She had been kind of under the impression that everyone just wanted to figure out what had happened to the plane, but she now had the feeling it might be a little more political than she had first thought.

“Uh-huh…” Bellamy looks at her expectantly.

She shifts uncomfortably in the hard wooden chair. “And…” she says slowly, stalling. 

“Does she think they’re any closer to figuring out what happened?”

In that moment, Lexa realizes that Bellamy’s mental picture of the situation is where hers was prior to talking to Kane. She also realizes that this means that Kane has not spoken to Bellamy yet. A surge of protectiveness envelops Lexa. She feels the deep well of responsibility as Captain, and knows that she has to warn him.

“No, and actually there’s something you need to be aware of. Apparently there’s a General Counsel lawyer that works for Polaris. His name is Marcus Kane. He called while I was in Clarke’s office.” Lexa pauses for a sip of coffee because her throat is feeling dry. She hates shattering peoples’ innocence. “We are going to be appointed legal counsel later today, and we’re not supposed to answer any questions until they’re present.”

Bellamy blinks slowly, trying to absorb the information and all the implications that come along with it. After a few seconds, his eyes shoot up to meet hers. He has figured it out.

“Yeah.” Lexa says definitively. “The airplane manufacturers are going to try to pin this on us.”

It looks as though a storm cloud descends over Bellamy. His eyebrows furrow and the corners of his mouth turn down. His nostrils flare slightly and he takes a deep breath.

He’s pissed. But he says nothing.

So Lexa continues. “I think that’s what the official inquiry is all about. People from the airline, the airframe manufacturers, the NTSB, the engine manufacturers… they’re all going to be there and asking us questions.”

“You mean eating us alive,” Bellamy says, an ironic smirk on his face.

Lexa shrugs. “Well, no. I mean, we’ll tell them the truth.”

Bellamy looks at her dubiously. “Will that be enough?”

Squaring her shoulders, Lexa turns into Captain Wood right there at the table.

“It will be,” she says, leveling Bellamy with an intense stare she imagines Anya would be proud of. “It has to be.”

  
  


**September 26**

**16:17:36**

Lexa is just deciding whether to take a bath or a shower when someone knocks on her hotel room door. 

The conversation with Bellamy had somehow leveled Lexa’s head. She left the coffee shop feeling strong and in control once again. Maybe it was because being around Bellamy had put her into Captain mode again, or maybe it was just being around the only person on the planet who understood _exactly_ what Lexa was going through. Or at least mostly. He wasn’t the one officially in charge of 387 but damn near the same thing. 

In spite of Lexa and Bellamy having different titles, they were the ones in the cockpit and, for all intents and purposes, worked as equals. That’s the way it should be in the cockpit of an airplane. In flight school, they had learned about many air disasters that could have been averted if the junior flight crew member had felt like he or she could have spoken up to their senior. It was one of the things drilled into them: in a flight crew, seniority is not the be-all end-all. Everyone’s voice matters. Everyone is safe to speak up.

After leaving the coffee shop, Lexa had decided to go for a run for the first time in weeks. She had known she’d be out of shape after not having exercised for a prolonged period of time, but she didn’t expect it to be _that_ bad. She had made it barely two miles before she was spent. Lack of proper nutrition over the previous weeks probably wasn’t helping.

And now someone is at the door and Lexa thinks she must look like a swamp witch.

_Please don’t let it be Clarke,_ she prays silently as she walks to the door.

Glancing through the peephole, Lexa sees a fish-eye view of the hallway and the distorted face of a woman she doesn’t recognize. She can tell from the fact that the woman’s chin is the largest thing she sees that the woman is quite a bit taller than she is.

Opening the door, Lexa opens her mouth to apologize for her sweaty, exhausted state but the woman speaks first.

“Alexandria Wood?”

“Yes ma’am,” Lexa replies, instinctively falling back on her military training to address someone she suspects has a higher rank than she. Or, in this case, a higher place in society. Or at the very least someone she should respect. If not for her job or rank, then for the mere fact that this woman must be about six feet tall and weigh at least seventy pounds more than Lexa does.

In short, the woman is built like a wall. And her demeanor clearly says _don’t fuck with me._

Piercing gray eyes peer at Lexa from a face with striking Eastern European features. The woman’s light brown hair is pulled back in a half-up style, which does nothing to soften the edge her energy delivers. Neither does the smart, gray pants suit she’s wearing nor the black leather briefcase she’s carrying. 

Lexa blinks. She hadn’t known anyone carried briefcases anymore, except maybe --

“I’m Charmaine Diyoza. Your lawyer.” 

_Ah._ _Of course._

Lexa breathes a sigh of relief as she shakes the woman’s outstretched hand - an act of friendliness Lexa almost didn’t expect from her.

“May I come in?”

“Yes ma’am,” Lexa says again, stepping back and opening the door to allow her lawyer inside. “Um, what… may I...” Lexa is trying to figure out if this woman has any military history. She would feel more comfortable calling her by her rank. Frankly, Lexa would be shocked if her lawyer had never been in the military. She carries herself in a way that Lexa recognizes.

“You can call me Charmaine when it’s us, but in the courtroom or anywhere else please address me as Ms. Diyoza.”

_Okay, not helpful,_ Lexa thinks. But at least she now knows what to call her.

Lexa watches Charmaine walk into the room and set her briefcase down on the small table by the window. She gestures to the only chair in the room, the one in the corner.

“May I sit?”

“Of course.” Lexa sits on the corner of the bed nearest Charmaine. “I apologize for my current state. I just came back from a run.” Lexa cringes, hearing how awkward her words sound.

Charmaine waves a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about it.” Then she eyes Lexa. It’s a look that says, _I know you._ “Captain.”

Lexa realizes Charmaine doesn’t just mean airline captain. For the first time, she notices the silver eagle pin on the lawyer’s briefcase.

“Colonel,” Lexa says, nodding her head. 

And just like that, they are family.

**September 26**

**19:58:38**

It turns out Charmaine Diyoza is just as scary in motion as she is sitting still. Even with her long legs, Lexa has to almost trot to keep up with her lawyer as she speeds down the hall toward Clarke’s office. Diyoza doesn’t walk - she marches. Quickly. For some reason, Lexa imagines the Imperial March from Star Wars playing as Diyoza looms along.

Clarke is waiting for them at her office door.

“Thanks for coming in so late in the evening,” she says as the two approach. She has one hand on her hip, her calm voice belying her displeasure. “If _Mister Kane_ had managed to get Lexa’s counsel here a little earlier, we could have met this afternoon and we’d be done by now.”

Lexa is almost impressed by the amount of venom in Clarke’s voice when she says Marcus Kane’s name.

Diyoza seems less impressed. She stops short in front of Clarke, towering over her by a good five or six inches (and that’s with her wearing flats) and boring a hole in Clarke’s face with her eyes.

Clarke, however, seems unfazed by the juggernaut that is Diyoza. She stares right back at her with icy blue eyes, her posture unchanged.

“Well, I’m _ever_ so sorry it took me so long,” Diyoza says and it’s extremely obvious that she isn’t sorry in the least. “I’d hate to interrupt your _science experiments_ .” Diyoza’s eyes flash. _Check. Your move._

Lexa sucks in a breath. She expects Clarke to snap at the lawyer but instead she smiles sweetly.

“That’s right, my science experiments.” She backs up and allows Lexa and Diyoza into her office. “Let me catch you up to speed on my science experiments.”

Clarke strides over to her desk and lifts up one-inch binder. She holds it up as though dangling a steak in front of a hungry dog before turning it over and opening it. After flipping through a few pages, Clarke turns the binder around and slaps it on the desk in front of Lexa and Diyoza.

She points to the page.

“I could just let you read this, but it would be easier if I paraphrased for you since science isn’t really your thing. Essentially, this states that all of our ‘science experiments,’ as you so amusingly called them, have come up inconclusive or negative, depending on what we were testing. Do you know what that means?”

Lexa does, but her brain is a step or two behind. She can’t quite see the big picture. It’s like being on a windy road and you know that just up ahead, around the next bend, is a really amazing viewpoint. You catch glimpses of it as you go through the trees but you can’t see the whole thing until you round that corner. Besides, Clarke isn’t really talking to Lexa anyway.

“I think you can probably figure it out, but I’ll tell you anyway. It means that, without _your client’s testimony,_ we have nothing to go on. And with nothing to go on, the NTSB cannot say one way or another that _your client_ , and therefore Polaris Air, is not responsible for this crash. And with the official inquiry happening in, oh…” Clarke checks her watch, “about twelve hours, this gives me very little time to add anything that you _really_ might want the panel to hear and take into consideration.”

_There’s the viewpoint,_ Lexa thinks. She understands the implications of having to wait to talk to Clarke. Without the whole story from hers and Bellamy’s perspectives, there might not be anything that _doesn’t_ point to them being at fault.

Clarke folds her arms across her chest.

“So,” she continues. “I would like to ask Lexa some questions now. If that’s okay with you.” 

One eyebrow raised, Clarke falls silent. And in Clarke’s silence, Lexa hears, _checkmate._

  
  
  
  
  



	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I've said before, this is FICTION lol. I have very limited knowledge of how an NTSB investigation works. All I know I've learned from TV and Sully Sullenberger's book Highest Duty (which I 10/10 recommend btw). So please suspend your disbelief while reading this chapter. ;)
> 
> Beware, next chapter the E rating will apply. You have been forewarned!
> 
> Comments and kudos make my heart happy.
> 
> Thank you Underthecovers xoxo. You are amazing and I adore you endlessly.

**September 27**

**07:44:11**

The room where the inquiry is taking place reminds Lexa of the auditorium-style classrooms at her high school. It had been a building used for a technical college at one point, before being bought by the school district and turned into Arkadia Senior High School, so therefore the rooms were built for huge class sizes and college-level instruction. The rooms had basically been semicircular in shape and the desks sat on tiered levels, the whiteboard and the teacher’s desk front and center.

This room is largely the same, except instead of singular desks there are three rows of long, curved tables. Microphones sit every few feet along the tables. Instead of a teacher’s desk right in the middle, there is a smaller table with two chairs - one for her, one for Bellamy. Lexa sees small folded pieces of cardstock placed in front of each chair, and she thinks they probably say hers and Bellamy’s names on them. They look like camping tents for grasshoppers. Off to the sides of the center table are two more tables with three chairs at each. Lexa presumes these are for the flight attendants, although she can’t read the names on the little cardstock tents standing at each place.

In the front row, facing the ‘hot seats’, are some small tables. Propped on the table tops are small signs that say “counsel.” Lexa, standing in the doorway that is in the top left corner of the room, feels a slight bit of relief knowing that Diyoza will be no more than five feet away from her and Bellamy while they get grilled.

Diyoza pushes past Lexa, striding purposefully into the empty room. Lexa almost expects a cape to come billowing after her lawyer as she advances down the aisle along the edge of the room. Diyoza’s movements aren’t dramatic, but they don’t need to be. Her intense presence takes care of that.

Sensing Lexa isn’t right behind her, Diyoza turns back halfway down. Her steely gray eyes soften a little, and she tilts her head in the direction of the front of the room. Taking a deep breath, Lexa follows Diyoza down to the center of the room.

“You sit here, obviously,” Diyoza says, gesturing to the chair behind the name card that says ‘Captain Alexandria Wood’ on it. “Bellamy will sit beside you. I’ll be over there.” She points to the counsel table.

“Is this going to be like a court hearing?” Lexa asks as she looks around the room again. Her stomach feels like it has a whole army of butterflies in it. She discreetly glances around for the nearest garbage can, fearing she might lose the little bit of breakfast she managed to force herself to ingest.

“No,” Diyoza answers. She sets her briefcase down on the counsel table, her Colonel pin glinting in the harsh fluorescent lighting. “It’s going to be more like a really intense interview. I’m here to make sure that you don’t answer a question in a way that will implicate you.”

A warning buzz starts in Lexa’s mind.

“But…” she starts, feeling like she doesn’t really want to go down this path of conversation but it’s too late to turn around. “What if I really  _ did _ do something wrong?”

Diyoza is busy pulling papers and folders out of her briefcase and placing them on the table. She doesn’t turn around.

“Then you don’t answer the question.”

It feels like the butterflies in her stomach suddenly turned into hornets. 

“You… do you want me to  _ lie _ ?” Lexa feels her palms getting sweaty.

“No,” Diyoza answers, her back still to Lexa. “I want you to deflect.”

The pieces of the picture come together so hard in Lexa’s mind that she almost hears them clang. 

“Wait… you aren’t  _ my _ lawyer, are you?”

“I’m hired by Polaris Air.” Diyoza finally turns around. Her eyes are firm but not unkind. “Captain,” she says. “You want to fly again, don’t you?”

Lexa can only nod.

“Then we need to make sure you don’t say anything that is going to prevent you from being able to do that. And that’s what I’m here for.”

  
  


**September 27**

**08:08:38**

There is a fly buzzing around and it keeps landing on the table in front of Lexa and Bellamy. She knows it’s ridiculous, but Lexa is almost jealous of that fly. To be able to just take flight whenever it wants and fly wherever it wants. It isn’t sitting at a table in front of twenty people who want to pick it apart, figuratively speaking. 

The fly lands on the table and rubs its tiny front legs together.  _ Do flies have hands? _ Lexa resists the urge to poke Bellamy and ask him this.

What is with her, anyway? Give her all the responsibility and pressure in the world and she can handle it just fine if she’s in the cockpit of a plane. Put her in front of a panel of experts (who are all so impassive they might as well be those giant head statues on Easter Island) and she clams up like a teenager at a dance.

Clarke is there. She’s sitting smack in the middle of the first row. In front of her is a name plate that says “Clarke Griffin - Lead Investigator - NTSB.” It’s bizarre, really. Clarke looks like a cherub - blonde hair, rosy cheeks, big blue eyes. She’s all of five feet six inches tall but is a force to be reckoned with.

_ How does that old Shakespeare line go?  _ Lexa tries to remember. _ Though she be but little, she is fierce. _

Flanking hers and Bellamy’s table are the two other tables, at which the flight attendants are seated. John Murphy, Jasper Jordan and Raven Reyes are at the one on Bellamy’s side, and Luna Natblida, Harper McIntyre and Ontari Snow are on the same side as Lexa.

Lexa actually hasn’t seen or spoken to any of them since the day of the accident. Her brief rendezvous with Jasper and Raven on the tarmac immediately following the incident was the only contact she had had with anyone involved aside from Bellamy.

All of them, with the exception of John Murphy, look as though they haven’t slept well in weeks. Lexa isn’t sure if John looked like that before or if he actually looks well-rested. He’s a weird one and she can’t get a handle on him, which is unsettling. She’s usually a very good judge of character.

Over Bellamy’s shoulder, Raven makes eye contact with Lexa. Her big brown eyes are soulful and expressive, and for some reason they make Lexa’s heart clench. She knows Raven well enough to know that she is smart, capable and largely unflappable, but a near-death experience can rattle even the most solid of personalities.

Raven gives a nod so tiny that Lexa almost doesn’t notice it, but it speaks multitudes:  _ I’ve got your back. I’m here for you. I support you. I trust you. _

In front and to the left of Lexa sits Charmaine Diyoza and, beside her, Marcus Kane, whom Lexa met for the first time just minutes ago. She already disliked him after her conversation with him on the phone in Clarke’s office the previous day, but his eely disposition does nothing to change her mind about him. He is the kind of person who gives lawyers the bad reputation they often do not deserve.

“Okay,” Clarke speaks into her microphone and Lexa snaps her head to look at her. “Now that everyone is here and settled, we can begin. This meeting is being recorded. This is the official inquiry into the accident involving Polaris Air flight three-eighty-seven that took place on the tenth of September, twenty-twenty. The pilot in command of the flight was Alexandria Wood, the first officer was Bellamy Blake. Today we will be hearing from the flight crew, including the flight attendants, as well as the tower controller on duty at the time of the accident and the first responders. We will begin with the sequence of events as told by the Captain and First Officer.”

Bellamy and Lexa glance at each other. Bellamy tips his chin in Lexa’s direction, indicating that she should begin.

Leaning forward, Lexa brings her mouth near the microphone that is placed on the table in front of her. 

“Well,” she says, but it blares out so loudly that everyone winces. She pulls her mouth back an inch or so and tries again, “Well…” Much better. “The flight began normally, on time. Start-up, push-back, taxi and takeoff all went as smoothly as possible. Climb-out and everything was normal. Routine. The entire flight was routine, until the very end.”

Pausing, Lexa turns to Bellamy to see if he has anything to add.

“Nothing was out of the ordinary at all until we tried to adjust our glide slope,” Bellamy confirms.

“And what happened when you did that?” Clarke asks.

Bellamy and Lexa make brief eye contact again.

“Absolutely nothing,” Lexa answers, bluntly. “The engines did not respond to the increased throttle. They stayed at exactly the same power level - no more, no less.”

A man all the way to the right in the same row as Clarke speaks into his mic. “Captain, are you absolutely sure you had the airplane configured correctly for landing?”

In her mind’s eye, Lexa sees the cockpit of N240PA. She can visualize the entire landing checklist. She has done it so many times that she knows it by heart.

_ “Altimeter.” _

_ “Checked.” _

_ “Localizer frequency and course.” _

_ “Check and check.” _

_ “Speedbrake.” _

_ “Armed.” _

_ “Landing flaps.” _

_ “Set to thirty.” _

_ “Gear down.” _

_ “Gear down, three green.” _

“Yes sir,” Lexa answers firmly. “I am sure.”

The man, who is so far off to Lexa’s right that she can’t read his namecard (and Lexa kind of thinks he resembles Jabba the Hutt,) stares at them intently while saying, “What about the autothrust?”

“It was off,” Bellamy answers. “That’s on the landing checklist, and we did it.”

“It’s not on the CVR.”

Lexa feels the cold hand of fear grip her heart. If they hadn’t turned off the autothrust, there is a chance that the plane was not responding to their manual input because the computer system could still override it. Planes are so automated these days that they can almost fly themselves. Computers are designed to minimize pilot error, but in this case not turning off the computer would  _ be _ the pilot error. How ironic.

Could they seriously have overlooked that?

“Actually,” Clarke interjects, “the autothrust was set to ‘OFF’.”

“But they didn’t say it in the CVR.” It almost sounds like the man is tattling on them. For a second, Lexa thinks he might put his fingers in his ears and say  _ nanna nanna boo boo. _

_ “Actually, _ ” Clarke says again, cutting off the surly man. “They did. It’s just hard to hear it on the CVR because the landing configuration warning system chimed at the same time that Captain Wood called for it to be checked. The LCWS went off just then because the flaps were still set to cruise, which was okay at that point because the wind allowed for flaps at that degree to still generate enough lift on the wings. It’s common to leave flaps where they are when they’re not needed to keep the airplane aloft.”

Clarke looks at Lexa with clear blue eyes. 

Lexa is speechless.

So, it seems, is everyone else. Diyoza, just in front of Lexa, turns her head to look incredulously at Clarke. Her lips pull into an amused smirk and Lexa thinks that Diyoza is realizing that she severely underestimated the lead investigator.

“Okay, moving on,” Clarke continues, snapping everyone out of their reveries. “Let’s hear from the flight attendants. Mister Jordan, you were the head flight attendant on flight three-eighty-seven that day. Please tell us what you experienced.”

Jasper shifts in his seat, taps his microphone twice to make sure it’s on, then leans forward. 

“It was a normal flight, just like Captain Wood said. Except at the end, we just kind of… smashed into the ground.”

A woman speaks up from the row behind Clarke. Lexa can’t see the namecard in front of her either but the question she asks makes Lexa think she’s representing the passengers. 

“Did you receive any warning from the flight deck?”

“Uh, barely. First Officer Blake said ‘brace,’ like, three seconds before we hit the ground.”

“And was that enough time for you to get the passengers into a brace position?”

“No ma’am,” Jasper says, his chin dipping a little bit. Lexa knows this is hard for him to say because he doesn’t want to make her and Bellamy look bad. Jasper meets Lexa’s eyes and she nods slightly at him to let him know that it’s okay.

“So if you had had more time, you could have gotten the passengers into a brace position before the impact?”

Bellamy leans forward sharply. “We couldn’t  _ give _ them any more warning.  _ We _ didn’t even have time to react.”

Lexa puts her hand on Bellamy’s forearm. His fist is clenching and unclenching on the table top.

“It’s true,” Lexa affirms. “The amount of time between realizing there was a problem and impact was so minimal that we really did not have a chance to warn the flight attendants or passengers.” Lexa chews her lip for a second. “It can’t have been more than thirty or forty seconds. And most of that time was taken up with trying to figure out a way to stretch our glide, so neither of us had the wherewithal to -”

A sharp noise from Diyoza stops Lexa in her tracks. The lawyer shakes her head tightly.

So Lexa backtracks. “Neither of us had the  _ opportunity _ to alert the flight attendants to the situation. If we had taken the time to do that, we probably would not have been able to get the airplane on the ground as safely as we did.”

“But if  _ you _ caused the problem, then it’s nobody’s fault but your own that you couldn’t warn the flight attendants.”

“Enough!” Clarke says loudly into her microphone. “This is not a court hearing, so I can’t shout ‘objection,’ but I would if I could. We are simply here to gather evidence and testimonies.”

“If I may speak,” comes a voice from the other flight attendant table. It’s Luna Natblida. Her dark hair is pulled back into a smart bun at the nape of her neck and her brown eyes rimmed with perfect eyeliner. “I have been studying airplanes and flight for most of my life. What Captain Wood and First Officer Blake are saying happened is congruent with my observations from the back of the airplane. With the tailwind there would not have been a need to increase thrust up to that point. By the time they would have needed to, it would have been almost too late to do anything at all when the engines didn’t respond.”

She looks down for a moment and everyone waits, quietly.

“It’s my opinion that if they had worried too much about warning us, they might not have been able to come up with a plan to ensure we didn’t hit the buildings, antennae or the fence at the perimeter. The fact that they were so intently focused on, at the very least, clearing the obstacles is probably what allowed them to come up with the plan to pull the flaps in to help us stay aloft a little longer.”

“Captain Wood thought of that,” Bellamy mentions.

Lexa gives him a dubious look. Nobody had yet asked who did what.

“Well, it was brilliant. And, since the aircraft was configured correctly for landing, then the problem obviously lay somewhere else and Captain Wood’s quick thinking is probably the reason why we are all here today.” Luna smiles at Lexa, and her heart swells a little. She hopes Luna pursues her love of flying, and Lexa hopes to one day be the one to sign her Pilot’s License.

Jabba the Hutt interjects just then, thundering on about how nobody can say for sure that the airplane’s demise wasn’t due to pilot error because nobody can say for sure what  _ did _ happen to it. The room erupts in questions and exclamations, everyone clamoring to be heard at once.

“ _ Quiet!” _ Clarke snaps into her microphone. “Honestly, people! This is an  _ inquiry, _ not a pissing match!”

Diyoza has to cover her chuckle with a cough, and even Bellamy cracks a smile.

“Let’s move on from this and now hear from Zoe Monroe, the tower controller assigned to three-eighty-seven. Miss Monroe, can you please tell us what you saw and heard?”

A young woman with long, dark-blonde hair pulled into a long braid down her back speaks softly but assuredly into her microphone from the bottom right corner of the room.

“Yes. Three-eighty-seven came in on an ILS approach, and Approach handed them over to us. I gave them landing clearance on runway two-four left. I could see them coming in, and nothing appeared to be wrong with the plane from what I could see.”

“Did you use binoculars to look at them?” 

Clarke isn’t being snarky, sometimes tower controllers will use binoculars to see airplanes on short-final if the lighting isn’t great. It helps to have a visual on airplanes that are coming in and going out, that way someone will notice if anything appears out of the ordinary. 

Usually a pilot would know if something was dreadfully wrong with their airplane, but the fact that there are no side mirrors on a plane means that pilots cannot see a large portion of the airplane while they are flying it. Off the top of her head, Lexa can think of a few instances where tower controllers identified an issue with an aircraft that pilots could not see. If a pilot doesn’t know what’s wrong with their airplane, they cannot know the best way to fly it.

After the tenth of September, Lexa unfortunately knows this firsthand.

“No, I did not,” answers Monroe. “The weather was clear, though, and I have pretty good eyesight.”

“There were no flames visible or anything?” 

That question comes from Marcus Kane, swiveled around backward in his seat so he can look at the tower controller.

Monroe looks at him, puzzled. “No, nothing like that.”

Clarke peers at Kane over the tops of her black-rimmed glasses. “Our investigators have already determined that there were no flames. Not even on impact. If you had looked over the preliminary report that was issued to everyone before this inquiry, you would have known that.”

“Just making sure,” Kane mumbles, turning back around. Diyoza gives him a significant side-eye, then whips her eyes to Lexa. She gives a barely noticeable wink.

Clarke shuffles through some papers on the table in front of her. “All right. Now we have heard from the pilots, the flight attendants and the tower controller. Let’s now hear from the first responders.”

Tapping the papers into a neat stack, Clarke takes her glasses off, massages the bridge of her nose, then puts her glasses back on and looks at the top paper. “Indra Forest, you are the Chief of the Airport Fire Department and you were the first on scene, correct?”

A stern-looking woman with short, cropped hair and chiseled features seated beside Zoe Monroe nods her head. “Yes,” she says.

“And can you tell us what you saw?”

“Yes. I saw the airplane coming in, actually. Our building is near the runway threshold. They looked low. It really appeared as though they were going to collide with either a building or the antennae at the threshold of the runway. The airplane’s landing gear cleared the antennae by no more than ten or twelve feet. Then they made contact with the grass. The airplane bounced back up into the air briefly and then came back down.”

“Could  _ you _ see anything wrong with the plane?”

Indra shakes her head. “Nothing obvious. It wasn’t on fire, as we’ve established, and the airframe looked normal from where I was.”

Clarke nods thoughtfully. “Okay. Now, can you tell us what you saw when you arrived on scene?”

Indra’s dark brown eyes meet Lexa’s green ones. “Sure. By the time the trucks arrived at the airplane, they were already starting the evacuation process. My people sprayed fire-retardant foam all over the airplane to prevent any fires from starting. The slides deployed and the passengers and flight attendants exited.”

“And when did you see Captain Wood and First Officer Blake leave the airplane?” It’s the woman who represents the passengers again.

Indra smiles slightly, not taking her eyes from Lexa’s. “They were the last ones out. It took them an extra minute or two, so I’m assuming they were checking the airplane to make sure everyone was out. I saw them come to the door, and Captain Wood gestured for her First Officer to exit first. Only then did she leave her aircraft.”

Indra tips her chin upward. Fire Chief and Airline Captain - two people in charge of the lives of many. Lexa understands Indra, and she knows Indra understands her too. 

  
  


**September 27**

**20:42:07**

The inquiry had lasted until almost three o’clock in the afternoon. They had taken a half hour lunch break, but other than that it had been constant. By the time they’d heard from every relevant party and all the different representatives had asked their questions, Lexa had felt like she was going to fall asleep sitting up. She had returned to the hotel, mumbling something to Bellamy about making good on her promise to buy him a drink, collapsed on the bed and fallen fast asleep.

Lexa cannot remember the last time she slept so hard.

When she awoke, she felt incredibly nauseated. The extreme stress of the day, coupled with the lack of food in her system, caused the most incredible case of indigestion she could recall. Lexa had forced herself to eat the small bags of pretzels she had gotten on the flight in (that she had shoved into her jacket pocket and forgotten about) and it took the edge off.

Now, she sends a text to Bellamy.

**_Still want to grab a drink?_ **

His reply comes almost instantly.

**_Sure do. Meet in the lobby in 30?_ **

Lexa responds in the affirmative, takes the fastest shower of her life, and puts on plain black jeans, a white button up and a black suit-coat style jacket. It’s not terribly cold outside so she leaves her warm jacket behind.

As a rule, Lexa doesn’t wear makeup except for mascara. She’s blessed with long eyelashes, but, in spite of her dark hair, they are very light in color. If she doesn’t wear mascara, it looks like she doesn’t have eyelashes at all. For whatever reason, Anya used to tease her mercilessly about this.

Anya never needed makeup. Her high cheekbones made sure she never required bronzer or anything for contouring. Lexa never cared about that, but she can recall Anya’s friends constantly bitching about how lucky Anya was to not have to use as much product as they did. Lexa never understood why they all needed to paint their faces on every day. It seemed like a waste of money.

Bellamy is waiting in the lobby when Lexa exits the elevator. He is dressed casually in a black zip-up hoodie, narrow-cut jeans and black Converse low-tops. He has his glasses on again and the same beanie he was wearing the day before.

Lexa starts laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Bellamy grins.

“You,” Lexa says. “You look like a high-schooler.”

Bellamy swats at her shoulder. “Shut up. Let’s go.”

Still chuckling, Lexa holds the front door open for Bellamy and together they walk into the night.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment who your favorite character is in this story!!!!
> 
> Me and my beta are both partial to Diyoza. :P


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay... I know I promised you smut this chapter. I'm sorrrrryyyyyyy!!!! But it's this weird phenomenon where the characters have their own ideas about where this story is going. I had it all planned out but you know what they say about the best laid plans..
> 
> So anyway, smut coming chapter 9! (Promise!)
> 
> Poor Lexa is on the struggle-bus! Or, should we say, the struggle-plane! ;)
> 
> Thank you to underthecovers.... I honestly don't know what I'd do without you! (Everyone! Go check out her amazing story Doctor on the Ground!)

**September 28**

**09:37:49**

_ “I can’t get any power to the engines…” _

_ Lexa thinks she can’t have heard him correctly. “What?” _

_ “The engines. I can’t get any power to the engines.” _

_ Icy fear rushes through Lexa’s veins; her heart hammers in her chest. She reaches for the throttles herself, throwing them forward over and over. _

_ “What are we going to do? We’re too low!” Bellamy screams. _

_ “Keep trying!” Lexa shouts. “And pray!” _

_ The buildings of the city below grow larger as they get nearer.  _

_ “We’re going down,” Bellamy says. _

_ The airplane sinks lower and lower. Right in their path is a gas station. Lexa knows that if they hit it, a massive explosion will ensue. _

_ “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, right before the sounds of tearing metal and passengers’ screams fill her ears. _

Lexa wakes up drenched in sweat, panting as though she’s just run a marathon. The sheets are damp and the pillow is wet. She’s freezing, shaking with cold. Clutching the bedcovers in her trembling hands, Lexa wills her heart rate to calm and her breathing to slow.

“It was just a dream,” she whispers. “Just a dream. It didn’t happen like that. Everyone is safe.”

She’s just about to flop back onto her pillow when her phone buzzes on the nightstand. It’s a text from Diyoza.

**Good morning. Could we meet at the Starbucks by your**

**hotel at around 10? Marcus Kane and I have some information to**

**discuss with you. I’ll order you a coffee, if you tell me what**

**you drink. Please confirm.**

Lexa taps out a response indicating that she will be there and that plain black coffee is fine. She wonders if she’s the only one invited to this meeting or if Bellamy will be there too.

Ten o’clock doesn’t give Lexa much time, though. She and Bellamy didn’t get back from the bar until after one in the morning. Neither of them were drunk (they’d only had a couple of beers each) but had instead spent the time just talking. Not about the accident, but about their lives. For a few seconds every now and again, Lexa had been able to forget why they were sitting there in the first place and just focus on hanging out with someone. 

For a moment, Lexa considers trying to shower quickly, but then she decides against it and throws on some clothes. She scrubs last night’s makeup off her face and ties her hair up in a bun on top of her head. Laughing at herself, she realizes  _ she _ now resembles a high-schooler, with her oversized plaid flannel and black skinny jeans. She thinks she needs some converse sneakers to complete the look. Bellamy would be proud.

**September 28**

**10:00:10**

Diyoza and Kane are already sitting at a table in the Starbucks seating area when Lexa walks through the door. She takes the seat across from Diyoza, thanking her for the coffee as she accepts it from the lawyer’s hand.

“So how did you feel about the inquiry yesterday?” Diyoza asks, tapping the lid of her own coffee cup.

“It was exhausting,” Lexa answers. She takes a sip of the coffee and burns her tongue.

“Well, you did great,” Diyoza tells her. “You handle pressure very well.” Her gray eyes are shining at Lexa and she swells under the Colonel’s praise.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Lexa says.

Kane speaks up. “Well I should hope she handles pressure well, she’s a pilot for God’s sake.”

Both Lexa and Diyoza look at him, expressionless. Then they glance at each other. Then Diyoza says, “I hope that someone as competent as Captain Wood is flying every flight I ever get on for the rest of my life.”

And that is not small potatoes, coming from her.

“Well that’s great,” Kane blusters. “But we are here to talk about her pilot license.”

“Right,” Diyoza says, and Lexa knows what they’re about to say. Suddenly she fears that she’s going to throw up the little bit of coffee she’s just drank. Interestingly, she’s more aghast at the idea of wasting the Colonel’s money than she is about the idea of potentially vomiting in public.

“The Federal Aviation Administration is officially suspending your license,” Kane says with no trace of emotion. “Indefinitely.”

“What that  _ means _ is,” Diyoza interrupts, obviously seeing the horrified look on Lexa’s face, “nothing is different than it was yesterday. Yesterday you were suspended by the airline, today it’s by the FAA. It doesn’t change anything.” Diyoza glares at Kane, probably for his insensitivity. “And as soon as you are cleared of responsibility for the crash of three-eighty-seven, you’ll be back up in the sky.”

It feels like someone punched Lexa hard right in the solar plexus. Her brain is trying to force her lungs to breathe but it’s like they’ve forgotten how. 

It had been Diyoza’s (and Lexa’s) hope that the cause of the crash would be determined before the FAA could file their paperwork and officially suspend Lexa’s pilot license. Of course, the suspension of her license had been in the works since the second the engines hadn’t responded to input, but once the paperwork went through it was immeasurably harder to undo it than it would have been if they’d managed to arrest the process before it could be completed. Like all government agencies, the FAA required basically everything short of a human sacrifice to get things done, signed and over with.

Somehow, Lexa manages to conjure up a semi-calm voice. “And what if the cause of the crash is never fully determined?”

It would be truly astonishing if the cause of the crash could not be determined. Lexa knows that every single thing an investigator could want is present in this scenario: the entire airplane (untouched by flame), the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder (both of which are housed in a container commonly known as a “black box,” although that’s a misnomer because they’re actually bright orange) and over two hundred witnesses.

Usually when the cause of a crash can’t be figured out, it’s due to a lack of evidence. Oftentimes the aircraft gets destroyed in the accident, making it difficult to figure out what happened. Even then, usually investigators can get to the bottom of it. But in this case, it shouldn’t be that difficult. It would almost be easier to believe that the hand of God came out of the clouds and pushed the airplane onto the grass than to believe that both engines would  _ simultaneously  _ malfunction in a way that left not even a single shred of evidence behind. One engine doing that would be remarkable enough, but the chances of it happening to both at once are infinitesimally small.

“It won’t happen,” Diyoza states matter-of-factly. Voicing Lexa’s previous thought, Diyoza continues, “The airplane is completely intact. Well, intact enough to pick it apart. Everyone survived. The black box was unharmed.” 

The lawyer’s gray eyes meet Lexa’s green ones.

“They’ll figure it out.” It sounds like a promise, even though Lexa knows Diyoza can’t promise that.

“But if they don’t, you’ll probably be let go by the airline,” says Kane.

Diyoza and Lexa freeze.

Lexa’s eyes widen.

Diyoza’s eyes narrow. And then she turns on Kane. “Get out of here.”

Marcus Kane looks taken aback. “What? I’m just saying-”

“You’ve said  _ enough _ . Now get out of here!” Diyoza’s nostrils are flared and her jaw muscle is twitching. “ _ Do not _ make me repeat myself a third time.” Her voice is dangerous and low.

For a second, Kane looks as though he’s going to argue with her but then seems to remember who he’s talking to and thinks better of it. He grabs his half-full coffee cup and heads for the door.

Charmaine Diyoza watches him leave, then turns back to face Lexa. 

“Hey,” she says. “Look at me.”

Lexa forces her eyes to stay on Diyoza’s. 

“Clarke will figure it out. I know she and I didn’t get off to the greatest start, but yesterday during the inquiry? I changed my mind.” There’s some admiration behind Diyoza’s words. “That might have been the wrongest I’ve ever been about a person. She’s very smart, Lexa. And her team is smart and capable. If anyone can figure out what happened to your plane, it’ll be them.”

Lexa knows she should listen. She knows she should believe in Clarke. She knows she should trust Diyoza. She knows she should trust  _ herself. _ She’s a good pilot, damn it. One of the best in her class in the Air Force and got an extremely high score on her civilian pilot test. She  _ knows, _ deep down, she didn’t fuck up that day.

But her mind is racing. Her heart is pounding. 

_ If I’m not a pilot, who will I be? _

Flying isn’t just what she does, it’s what she  _ is. _ The cockpit of an airplane is where she feels at home. Safe. In control. Confident.

“Lexa?” Diyoza’s voice sounds very far away, like she’s talking to her from the other end of a tunnel. Lexa can’t find her way to where Diyoza is. Her hands shake so badly she lets go of the coffee cup and prays it doesn’t tip over on the table, spilling hot coffee everywhere. Her vision narrows to almost a pinpoint.

_ If I’m not a pilot, who will I be?  _

_ “Captain!” _ Diyoza’s voice is sharper now, louder. A pair of hands grip Lexa’s on the tabletop. 

“Captain, listen to me.” It’s not a demand from lawyer to client; it’s an order from Colonel to Captain. Lexa hears her. The steady hands holding her own shaky ones is a sharp contrast to the no-nonsense military tone of voice.

Lexa drags her eyes up to Diyoza’s and wills herself to focus.

“Breathe with me, Captain.” Diyoza stares Lexa down, not blinking. “In,” Diyoza’s nostrils flare as she inhales. “And out.” Her mouth forms a small ‘o’ as she slowly lets the breath out. “Come on, you can do this. Listen to my breathing and copy it. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes ma’am,” Lexa wheezes. 

She’s sure other patrons are staring at them but she doesn’t care. She feels like she’s dying; like if she lets go of Diyoza’s hands or looks away from her eyes that her tenuous grip on life will slip away and she’ll just drop into nothingness. 

“Breathe in,” Diyoza instructs, and Lexa forces her lungs to comply.

“Now breathe out.”

Lexa pushes the air out of her lungs forcefully. It’s not slow or graceful like Diyoza’s breathing is, but at least the air went out.

“Now in again, slowly.”

As Diyoza repeats her instructions, the hissing in Lexa’s ears and the darkness feathering the edges of her vision both start to recede. Little by little, she becomes aware of the table, the chair, the window, the music playing, and the other people around. 

“Talk to me,” Diyoza says. “Tell me a story from when you were a kid. Tell me about your bedroom when you were ten. What did it look like?”

Lexa knows what Diyoza is doing. She’s pulling her mind out of the current stressor, forcing her to think about something else.

Without taking her eyes from the lawyer’s, Lexa thinks back.

“I shared a room with Anya. We had bunk beds.”

“Were you on the top or the bottom?”

“Top, of course. And Anya used to yell at me because I wiggled so much in my sleep that the bed frame would creak. It was made of this cheap metal.”

“What else?”

Lexa blinks. “We had a lava lamp. It was green. And we hung twinkle lights all around the room.”

Diyoza squeezes Lexa’s hands tightly and then pulls her hands back. “Good. That’s good.”

Lexa thinks she should be embarrassed or ashamed of herself for panicking like that in front of Diyoza, but the expression on Diyoza’s face tells her it’s not necessary. She’s looking at Lexa with a mix of awe and understanding. Lexa waits quietly, feeling like Diyoza is going to say something.

And she does.

“This probably isn’t something I should tell you, but I’m going to anyway.”

Lexa smiles a little bit; that was such a Diyoza thing to say.

“I used to get panic attacks like that often.” Diyoza leans back in her chair and contemplates the tabletop for a few seconds. “I was deployed. It was awful. After I got out of the Army, I had terrible flashbacks and suffered from PTSD.”

The sad look on Diyoza’s face tugs at Lexa’s heart. She waits, saying nothing.

Diyoza smiles wistfully. “I couldn’t sleep. Everything hurt. I couldn’t eat.” She eyes Lexa’s thin frame. “Looks like you’re in the same boat.”

Lexa drops her eyes, ashamed. As a soldier, she should be taking care of her body. 

As if she can read her thoughts, Diyoza taps the back of Lexa’s hand. “It’s not your fault. You’re doing the best you can. You just need a little help to get out of it.”

“What helped you?” Lexa asks. Her eyes are stinging and she fears she’s going to cry. Taking a deep breath she steels herself, forcing the emotion back down.

“Honestly? Therapy.” 

Okay,  _ that _ wasn’t what Lexa had been expecting to hear. 

“I’m serious,” says Diyoza. Her expression is earnest. “It really helped me and I’ll bet it would help you, too.”

“But I don’t know any…” 

Lexa’s voice trails off as a memory tugs at her mind and suddenly she’s back on an airplane. Not as a pilot, but as a passenger. Gripping the armrests in terror and a nice guy in the seat next to her making small talk.

_ “My dad’s a therapist…” _

Lexa digs in the inside pocket of her jacket and pulls out the business card.  _ Wells Jaha, Insurance Agent.  _

_ “If you need anything while you’re in the city…” _

And below his name is a phone number.

  
  


**September 29**

**15:15:23**

“So how’d it go?” Anya asks, and in the background Lexa can hear the tags on Titus’s collar jingling.

Anya is referring to Lexa’s appointment with Dr. Jaha, Wells’s father. Lexa had sent a text to Wells while she was still at the coffee shop with Diyoza yesterday, and he had responded immediately and with zero questions asked. He had simply given Lexa the phone number for his father’s office and told her he would call ahead to make sure his father knew she would be contacting him.

Dr. Jaha had gotten her in this morning. It had been… interesting.

“It was interesting,” Lexa answers. 

And it had been. He had asked her a lot of questions about how the accident had been affecting her life in ways that she hadn’t even realized it might be. For example, Dr. Jaha had pointed out that Lexa’s sudden inability to remember lyrics to songs she’d heard a hundred times before could be related. Her brain simply didn’t have enough bandwidth to operate with the same level of recall it normally could.

Dr. Jaha had also gone through a series of exercises that Lexa could do to help stave off panic attacks or help pull herself out of them if one started. It reminded her a little bit of how Diyoza had helped her through the one she’d had at Starbucks.

“Interesting how?” Presses Anya. “Is he nice? Is he weird? Did he make you lay on one of those couch thingies?”

Lexa cracks up. “No, Anya,” she says, still chuckling. “He didn’t make me lay on a couch and no, he’s not weird. He’s nice.”

“Is he cute? You hear about some middle-aged therapists being really good-looking… like Richard Gere or something.”

Making a face, Lexa pulls the phone from her ear and taps the button to put the call on speaker-phone. “ _ Anya _ . For one thing, I’m gay. For another thing,  _ no. _ ” She pulls on her running shoes.

“What are you doing?” 

“Getting ready to go for a run. I’m stressed out and can’t sit still.”

Lexa knows what Anya is going to say before she says it.

“What you  _ need, _ ” Anya says piously, “is to go out dancing.”

Lexa pauses. She had thought Anya was going to tell her to go find a one-night stand. The idea of dancing actually sounds a little appealing. Lexa’s not a big drinker but a shot or two of vodka coursing through her veins, some pounding music and flashing lights might be just the thing.

After all, if she’s possibly going to be out of a job soon, what has she got to lose?

“Look,” Anya continues. “If I were there, I’d come over, doll you up and drag you out myself. But as it stands, I’m three thousand miles away and I haven’t learned to teleport yet. And besides, I have to take care of your hound.”

“My hound,” Lexa scoffs, rolling her eyes.

“Yes, your hound,” Anya affirms. “ _ Isn’t that right you filthy animal…” _ Anya is speaking to Titus now, Lexa hopes. “So you’re just going to have to put on your big girl panties and do this without your big sis, okay?”

Lexa huffs through her nose. “I don’t need you around to go out dancing, Ahn. I’m an adult, for God’s sake. I can go by myself if I want to.”

“Sure you can, but I know you, and you  _ won’t.  _ So I suggest calling your friend Wells up again and asking him where he recommends you go.  _ Capiche? _ ”

“Good _ bye _ , Anya,” Lexa says affectionately and hangs up.

She chews her lip for a moment, then opens her recent text messages and sends a message to Wells, asking for a nightclub recommendation. She waits a few moments and then a reply appears.

**_Halocene. 10/10 recommend._ **

**_You’ll love it. The music is great_ **

**_and the drinks are strong. No_ **

**_cover charge before 10:30pm_ **

**_on Fridays..._ **

She taps out a response, thanking him. Then her fingers hover over the keys once more. She wants to ask him if he’ll come along, but she’s afraid he’ll take it the wrong way. But before she can say anything else, Wells responds again.

**_Want some company? Don’t_ **

**_worry, I’m bringing a date. I’m_ **

**_not hitting on you, pinky swear._ **

Lexa laughs out loud. She likes Wells. He’s funny and genuine and Lexa is extremely grateful that fate put her next to him on that flight.

**_Sure, that’ll be great. Thanks._ **

**_Meet you at 10pm?_ **

The blinking dots appear for a split second before the response comes.

**_Rad! See you then!_ **

It feels like there is a swarm of butterflies in Lexa’s stomach again. Her hands feel a little tingly.  _ What is going on? _

Suddenly, and to her intense surprise, she realizes that what she’s feeling is excitement. It’s been so long since she felt that way that she almost didn’t recognize it for what it was.  _ I’m excited,  _ she thinks.  _ I can’t wait to go. _

  
  


**September 29**

**21:57:17**

Even though Lexa had never expressly told Wells she’s gay, he had obviously figured it out. A giant rainbow flag flies just beside the door to Halocene, and from within comes the sounds of people laughing and shouting, all over the low rhythmic beat of the bass.

“Hey, Alexandria!” Wells comes up from behind her and she spins around to face him. “You made it!”

“Wells! Hi! Uh, you can actually call me Lexa. Most everyone does.”

If Wells thinks it’s strange that she’s just now telling him that her name is Lexa, even though she introduced herself as Alexandria, he doesn’t let on. 

“This is Aspen, my date.” Wells gestures to a very beautiful person standing beside him. High cheekbones, flawless skin and short, bleached-blonde hair - Lexa can’t actually tell if Aspen is a man or a woman. 

“Nice to meet you,” Aspen says, and the voice gives no clue either. Aspen shakes Lexa’s hand firmly and smiles at her. She can’t help but smile back.

Wells tilts his head in Lexa’s direction. “Lexa and I met on an airplane, of all places. She’s here in DC for a while and decided to come experience some night life.” Wells slings an arm around Lexa’s shoulders. For a second she feels like she should be uncomfortable with his familiarity, but she finds she isn’t. 

“That’s awesome!” Aspen exclaims. “I love to fly. I wanted to be a pilot when I was a little kid.”

“Me too,” Lexa says, laughing. 

“Why didn’t you?” Wells asks, turning soft brown eyes on Lexa.

She smirks. “I did.”

A moment passes in silence as Wells and Aspen try to absorb that, then Wells starts laughing. 

“Nervous flier, my ass!” He whoops. “No wonder you knew that the pilots would like it if I told them their landing was good. Is that why you’re in DC? Something for flying?”

Lexa purses her lips. “I guess you could say that.”

“What airline do you fly for?” Aspen asks, genuinely curious.

Pausing, Lexa tries to think fast. This conversation is straying into dangerous territory. If she tells them any more, they might figure out why she’s  _ really _ in DC, and all her hopes of a normal, fun evening will be completely dashed. She tries desperately to think of another airline that she knows enough about that she could make it believable that she flies for them. But, in spite of the fact that she’s always worked well under pressure, her apostate brain can’t come up with a single thing.

_ Maybe I could say that I don’t fly anymore, _ Lexa thinks.  _ I mean, technically that’s true, isn’t it? But that doesn’t answer the question of why I’m in DC. And if I’m not in DC for something to do with flying, then why  _ am _ I here? _

And then she stops. She just stops.

It’s too hard to lie; too hard to come up with things because then she not only has to come up with it but  _ remember _ it later. It’s exactly the reason she never lied as a kid. It was just so easy to get caught.

“Polaris Air.” She squares her shoulders, full captain’s pose, and waits for the pieces to come together.

And, of course, they do.

“Isn’t that the airline that just had a crash earlier this month? The pilot managed to get the plane down in one piece and everyone lived, right?” Of course Wells is the one to make  _ that _ connection.

“Yes,” Lexa answers simply.

Another moment passes as Wells and Aspen wrap their minds around  _ that  _ now.

This time, Aspen is the first one to figure it out. “That was you?”

“Yes,” Lexa says again. Nothing more.

“Oh  _ shit,” _ breathes Wells. “Okay, so maybe you are a little bit of a nervous flier these days.”

For some reason, that makes Lexa laugh uproariously. She throws her head back and laughs hard. The muscles in her abdomen protest - it’s been such a long time since she laughed like that, her body has kind of forgotten how.

“Come on, Captain,” Wells says, laughing too. He puts his arm around Lexa’s shoulders once again and guides her toward the door of Halocene. “Let me buy you a drink.”

“Or five,” Aspen adds, following behind.

\---

One hour and two vodka-cranberries later, Lexa is sufficiently buzzed. Not drunk, not even tipsy, but definitely buzzed. Her head feels light and everything is funny to her. The three of them are sitting at a small, round table tucked in a corner between the bar and the dance floor. Wells had called it the ‘perfect people-watching spot’ and Lexa has to agree. 

Halocene is crowded and there is no shortage of interesting people to watch.

“So,” Aspen shouts in Lexa’s face. “Tell me about your life as a pilot.”

Aspen has had a few more drinks than Lexa has, and it shows. However, they don’t appear to be a sloppy drunk, which is relieving because that can get very old very fast.

_ My life as a pilot, _ thinks Lexa, suddenly feeling far too sober for this topic of conversation.  _ What about it? _ _ I went to work, I took off, I flew, I landed, I went home. Rinse and repeat.  _ Her lips twist into a mirthless smile.  _ Until I crashed a plane, that is. _

“There’s not much to tell, really,” she answers, poking at the ice in her glass with the flimsy little straw. “I flew planes. That’s about it.”

“Big planes?” Aspen asks, eyes wide like a kid on Christmas morning.

Lexa laughs softly. “Yes. Big planes.”

“Bigger than the one we flew on?” Wells pipes up from beside Aspen. They are cuddled up together in the semi-circular booth and Lexa suddenly feels cold with no one pressed up to her side.

“Much bigger,” Lexa says. “At least twice as big.”  _ Baby, _ she thinks, envisioning her beloved N240PA. “Huge.”

“Wow,” Aspen says, looking at Lexa the same way Titus looks at Anya - adoringly.

Lexa squirms, looking quickly at Wells to see what he thinks about his date eyeing her like that, but he seems to have a similar expression on. Suddenly, she feels confined in the booth.

“I’m going to get another drink. I’m opening a tab. Want anything?”

“Nope,” Wells and Aspen say in unison. 

“You are not buying a single drink,” Wells says, hopping up. How he manages to move so gracefully after three drinks Lexa cannot fathom. She’s only had two and she has to walk very carefully.  _ Lightweight, _ she can hear Anya’s good-natured sneer.

Lexa follows Wells to the bar so that he doesn’t have to carry three drinks back to the table by himself. As they stand there, waiting for the bartender to finish making the drinks for the previous customer, Lexa turns to face the dancefloor.

She freezes.

It’s like in the movies when crowds of people simultaneously draw back, revealing a person bathed in perfect light from above. Like Moses parting the Red Sea. Lexa feels like there should be a choir somewhere singing a really high-pitched operatic note.

Lexa swears her jaw hits the floor. 

There, in the middle of the dancefloor, completely consumed by the music, dancing unabashedly by herself, is a pretty girl with wavy, blonde hair and an extremely alluring pair of hips that sway and snap to the pounding beat. Her eyes are closed, arms raised, head tilted back.

Clarke Griffin, NTSB.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos make my heart happy!
> 
> Comment below - what did YOU want to be when you were little?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I am fairly unfamiliar with the US Air Force. My info is from wikipedia. Don't delete me. LOL
> 
> Thanks to my favorite Aussie Underthecovers for your help, as always. 
> 
> ****PLEASE NOTE**** There is smut in this chapter. Just be aware. You won't miss any of the plot line if you skip it.

**September 29**

**23:05:39**

There are a few times in her life that Lexa can recall being completely surprised. 

One of those times was Christmas the year she turned eleven. She had  _ really _ wanted this Lisa Frank art set. It was so unlike anything she usually wanted that she had been caught off guard by the intensity of her desire to have this particular item. It came in a plastic briefcase-type box with rainbow cheetah print on it. Inside there was a plethora of different art supplies - colored pencils, crayons, fine-tipped markers, oil pastels and even a small set of tempera paints with brushes. 

The set had cost almost forty dollars, though, and Lexa knew they didn’t have the money for it. Her parents were constantly at odds with each other and were mismanaging their money almost out of spite for one another, leaving Anya and Lexa to suffer in the wake of their immaturity.

On Christmas morning, however, Lexa had been utterly shocked to find that art set sitting under the tree for her. She never did figure out who had bought it for her, but it remains one of her favorite Christmas memories to this day.

Another time Lexa had experienced complete surprise was when she had won first the school-wide and then district-wide spelling bee in eighth grade. She had entered on a whim, mostly because her Language Arts teacher had told her she should. Lexa hadn’t expected to do very well, so when she’d managed to spell down their entire school she had been pretty surprised and, if she’s being honest, impressed with herself. 

Next came the district-wide spelling bee, and this one she  _ really _ hadn’t expected to do well in. But, lo and behold, she won the damn thing by correctly spelling  _ pococurante _ , a word which she’d never even heard before. She found herself endlessly amused by the fact that the definition of the word she won the spelling bee with (when used as an adjective) was exactly how she had initially felt about the whole thing: nonchalant.

Those had been very surprising moments in her life.

But she thinks that  _ this _ moment - seeing Clarke Griffin dancing alone in the middle of the crowded dance floor at Halocene on a random Friday night in September, wearing an extremely short dress - might just be the most surprised she’s  _ ever _ been.

She’s staring, open-mouthed, at Clarke when Wells comes shoulder to shoulder with her, three drinks balanced precariously in his grasp.

“Here’s your - oh.” He follows her gaze. “I’ll just take this back to the table for you.” And like the great wingman Lexa knew he would be, he disappears.

At the same moment that Wells departs, the music changes. The bass disappears and a melodious refrain starts. The lights drop low and solid. Lexa watches, entranced, as Clarke’s movements change with the rhythm. Her hips slow down, swaying gently side to side. Her lead lolls back on her shoulders, her hands coming up to the back of her neck and then slowly dragging down her body. The tension rises as everyone in the room feels the music build. As it does, Clarke tilts her head forward and opens her eyes, staring directly at Lexa.

If she is surprised to see her there, she doesn’t let it show. Instead, she holds eye contact with Lexa as a sexy little smirk appears on her face. 

The beat drops.

The dance floor erupts. 

Clarke spins around, offering Lexa an incredible view of her ass, and looks over her shoulder with an eyebrow quirked as if to say  _ well? Are you coming? _

Lexa  _ really _ doesn’t dance. ‘Going out dancing’ means going to a nightclub where people ( _ not  _ Lexa) dance and having some drinks and  _ maybe _ walking to the perimeter of the dance floor while people-watching. But Captain Lexa Wood does  _ not _ dance.

Except maybe tonight she does.

The thought that perhaps she shouldn’t do this does cross her mind. Clarke is the lead investigator for the crash of  _ her _ airplane. This is probably breaking like a million rules.

Or is it? Are there even rules about this? Are they actually written down somewhere? Like,  _ investigators shall not dance with anyone from the investigation at nightclubs? _ Because that’s all they’re going to do, right? Just dance.

Dancing in the dark won’t change the science of anything. It won’t make evidence appear or disappear. As long as Clarke remains objective, and Lexa is sure she will, then it shouldn’t make a difference at all.

Lexa’s hands slide around Clarke’s hips from behind. Clarke’s ass presses into Lexa’s pelvis and she  _ grinds _ back against her. Clarke’s arm raises up and her hand grasps the back of Lexa’s neck, pulling Lexa up to her shoulder so they are cheek to cheek.

“I’m drunk,” Clarke murmurs right into Lexa’s ear. “I need you to know that.”

“It’s okay,” Lexa answers. “I won’t hurt you.” 

“Dance with me.”

Lexa’s head spins. The lights are flashing, the bass is pounding. Sweat drips down between her shoulder blades as they wrap up in each other on the dance floor. Clarke gyrates and oscillates, sometimes facing Lexa, other times facing away. Their hands intermittently find purchase on each other’s bodies - hips, lower back, shoulders - and intertwine together.

It’s like everyone else disappears.

Forehead to forehead, Clarke’s lips brush against Lexa’s. 

“I want to kiss you,” she whispers, and in spite of the loud music, Lexa can hear her just fine. 

“Then kiss me.”

And when Clarke does, Lexa almost forgets her own name. She forgets that she probably shouldn’t even be dancing with Clarke, let alone kissing her. She forgets Wells, Aspen, the nightclub, the city of DC, the inquiry, airplanes and everything else except that Clarke is kissing her. Her lips are so soft. Her tongue slips against Lexa’s lower lip, begging entry, which Lexa is quick to grant.

It’s hot, it’s heavy, and it’s too much.

“Take me home,” Clarke breathes against Lexa’s mouth.

\---

_ This is probably a mistake. _ Lexa knows this somewhere deep down but can’t seem to find it in her to care. 

A rushed goodbye to Wells and Aspen was met with knowing smiles and over-exaggerated winks. A stumbling walk to a crowded subway, punctuated by kisses and wandering hands was followed by an even more rushed four block walk to Clarke’s downtown loft. All of it was capped by the two of them literally falling through the front door.

Because of course Clarke is as clumsy as she is beautiful, and Lexa cannot get Clarke’s tight, midnight blue mini-dress off fast enough.

Never breaking their heated, messy kiss, they stagger backward into the living room, and Lexa is amazed they haven’t knocked anything over in their haste.

“Mmm… fuck…” Clarke whines as Lexa’s hands slide up her sides and her fingers caress the sides of perfectly shaped breasts. Lexa smiles against Clarke’s lips as she feels her shove her chest forward, begging.

Giving the blonde what she’s desperately craving, Lexa thumbs Clarke’s nipples, feeling them harden immediately beneath her touch. Clarke mewls against her mouth, sounding desperate. Her hands clutch Lexa’s biceps.

Soon, they are completely bare to one another, clothes strewn about the apartment, and they land in Clarke’s bed. Chest to chest, nose to nose; Clarke on her back and Lexa hovering over her. Chestnut hair falls like a curtain around them.

“I’m not drunk anymore,” Clarke whispers. Her eyes are wide, pupils blown and sparkling in the dark.

“Noted.”

Lexa understands. Clarke is telling her she’s fully aware of what they’re doing; she knows the risks and is doing it anyway.

“I’ve wanted you from the moment I met you.” A soft smile crosses Clarke’s pretty face. “In that tiny little conference room.”

Lexa smiles too. She remembers. “Well, you have me now.”

“Kiss me again,” Clarke begs. “I need you.”

Clarke’s voice is husky and soft and who is Lexa to deny her? Their lips meet, and it’s a whole different ball game now. What was hurried and desperate is now slow and sweet. Lexa slides her tongue against Clarke’s lips, tasting her, coaxing her open and drawing soft sighs and quiet moans from her.

Minutes pass as they map each other’s mouths with their tongues as if learning each other by heart. When they finally pull apart they are gasping and needy.

But suddenly Lexa freezes. It’s like all her confidence has suddenly fled. She’s unsure of herself, scared. This has never happened before - Lexa has never doubted her abilities in any aspect of life. It’s like the crash of 387 has knocked her self-confidence down several pegs.

But of course Clarke seems to notice this, and knows just what to do.

“It’s okay,” she soothes. “I’ve got you.” She gently flips them over so Lexa is laying on her back, her hair splayed out all over the pillow. Her body is soft and pliant under Clarke’s hands. The blonde stares down at her with gentle, adoring eyes. “You’re beautiful.”

Lexa blushes. She feels every bit as naked as she is under Clarke’s gaze. When an exploratory finger trails from her sternum to her belly button, she shivers and feels her body respond.

“You want more?” 

Breathless, Lexa nods. “Please.” It’s a whispered plea. She understands what Clarke is doing - she’s giving her every chance to back out, to change her mind, to say ‘no, I don’t want this.’ (Lexa will say no such thing.)

Trailing her hand lower, Clarke finds Lexa incredibly wet and ready for her. As she slips her fingers over Lexa’s aching clit, her other hand cradles the back of Lexa’s head, pulling her up to crash their lips together once more. An embarrassingly needy moan escapes Lexa’s control and echoes in Clarke’s mouth.

But while the moan may have sounded embarrassing and wanton to Lexa, it appears to be fuel for Clarke’s fire - if the way her eyes darken is any indication. She rubs Lexa in earnest, making small circles around her sensitive clit, making Lexa’s hips roll up into her hand.

“More,” Lexa begs, not even caring how she must sound now. “I need you inside.” This woman is like an aphrodisiac and Lexa can’t get enough.

“Don’t worry,” Clarke soothes against the skin of Lexa’s neck. “I’m gonna get there, I promise.”

Clarke kisses her way down Lexa’s body, pausing to swirl her tongue over Lexa’s nipples on her way down. When she arrives between Lexa’s legs, it feels like time stretches out immeasurably. Clarke teases her, kissing the insides of her thighs, the swell of her pubic bone, the soft skin near her hip bones.

“Clarke!” Lexa scolds. She presses her hips as far up as they can go.

“Okay, okay,” Clarke smirks against Lexa’s inner thigh. 

And then her tongue makes contact with Lexa’s clit at the same moment as her fingers slip inside her, and Lexa knows she is a goner.

Less than a minute later, Lexa is panting and gasping. “Clarke… fuck… oh god, yes…”

Her hips jerk sharply as she comes. Clarke takes it like a champ, though, using her free arm to loop around Lexa’s thigh to hold her in place so she doesn’t buck them both right off the bed. Waves of pleasure so strong it borders on pain roll through Lexa’s body. 

Lexa is no stranger to sex. She’s no virgin Mary. But up until right now, she was not aware that anyone could make her feel this way.

What on earth is Clarke doing to her? She’s playing Lexa’s body like an instrument she’s been practicing her whole life. Her tongue stays circling Lexa’s clit, flicking over it occasionally, pressing down on the top and sides of her most sensitive place. Her fingers are stroking in and out, over and over, dragging across the spot inside Lexa’s body that causes her toes to curl and her breath to hitch. Clarke pulls another orgasm out of her, and then a third.

The pleasure is so intense. Too intense.

“Clarke… I can’t… enough...” Lexa tugs feebly on Clarke’s hair and she gets the message, crawling back up Lexa’s body, kissing her as she goes. She settles her body beside Lexa’s, gently running her fingertips over Lexa’s belly, ribs and collarbone.

“Hi,” Clarke whispers when Lexa’s eyes open.

“Hi back,” Lexa says, smiling. 

She feels her confidence renewed.

“Your turn,” she murmurs, and unceremoniously flips Clarke onto her back.

  
  


**September 30**

**10:10:43**

They had woken up together, tangled in Clarke’s sheets and each other. Lexa had expected Clarke to look at her with regret in her eyes, but she didn't. Quite the opposite. She had looked Lexa in the eye, leaned forward and kissed her. That kiss had told Lexa a lot.

_ I meant it. _

_ I wanted it. _

_ I don’t regret it. _

Lexa had also expected to feel guilty. But she doesn’t.

Clarke, however, is nothing if not direct, so when she said, “I suppose we should probably talk about it,” Lexa was not surprised. She was, however, surprised when Clarke pushed her over onto her back on the bed and kissed her way down Lexa’s sternum again (for the third time? Fifth? Hundredth?) and added, “in a little bit.”

When they had come up for air after an hour and two back-arching orgasms each, Clarke’s stomach had growled loudly.

Lexa had chuckled. “Hungry?”

“Always,” Clarke had laughed. 

Now they are sitting at an old-fashioned diner. The tables are whitish formica with silver edges and the booths are made of that terrible red vinyl with flecks of glitter in it. They’re the kind of booths that the backs of your legs stick to if you wear shorts when you sit there.

Lexa is drinking a cup of black coffee. (If you could even call it coffee. Lexa thinks it rivals the awful stuff they gave her the day she first met Clarke. And she’s a little surprised to realize that she just thought of that day as ‘the day she first met Clarke’ and not ‘the day of the accident’ but she doesn’t dwell too much on that right now.) 

Another surprising thing was that Lexa found herself absolutely ravenous. She had ordered eggs, toast and fruit and devoured  _ all _ of it. She can’t remember the last time she was this hungry.

Clarke, to Lexa’s utter delight, had ordered chocolate chip pancakes and a Coke to drink. 

“Coke? For breakfast?” Lexa had laughed when Clarke had put her order in.

“What?” Clarke asked, blue eyes wide with innocence and twinkling with amusement. “I like Coke!”

“Most people drink coffee or orange juice for breakfast,” Lexa had informed her, as if Clarke didn’t know that.

A flippant wave of Clarke’s hand was followed by a, “Yeah, well, I’m not most people.”

“Yeah, I’m beginning to realize that!” Lexa said, laughing.

Lexa is just so… she doesn’t even know the word. Amused? Intrigued? Delighted? All of the above. Clarke is a wrecking ball. She blows in, loud and wild, speaks her mind and follows her heart. She’s unashamed of who she is. She makes no apologies and lives without room for regrets. Lexa barely knows her but can tell these things about her.

“So tell me, how did you get into flying?”

Small talk is not what Lexa is expecting. Clarke is usually so forthright that she had thought they’d cut straight to the chase and talk about what happened between them, but apparently Clarke has other ideas.

“Well, I was in the Air Force. I love flying. So being a commercial airline pilot seemed like a natural choice.”

“Huh,” Clarke says, taking a sip of her soda. “Tell me about that. I mean, I already knew you were in the Air Force - I read your file. But tell me what it was like.”

Lexa shifts in the booth.  _ How do you sum up a military career succinctly?  _ “It was interesting,” she settles on. “I flew fighter jets.”

“I figured. Did you see battle?”

“Kind of. I didn’t drop bombs, if that’s what you mean.” Lexa smiles and twists up her napkin. 

Clarke laughs softly. “It’s not, but that’s good to know.”

“We mostly did patrol-type stuff.”

“What was the craziest thing that happened to you?” Clarke is staring at her with wide-eyed wonder, waiting to hear her answer. 

Lexa thinks. “Well, it didn’t happen to me personally, but I saw it happen. A buddy of mine was flying another plane, and he had to eject.”

Clarke’s mouth forms an ‘o’ of surprise. “Really? Wow! What happened? Why did he have to eject? Did he survive? Did the plane crash? What kind of jet was it?”

Laughing, Lexa shakes her head. “It was an F-16. Yes, he survived. Yes, his plane crashed. Improper maintenance caused the nose to pitch upward and he went into a stall. He didn’t have enough altitude to troubleshoot, so he had to eject. He was cleared of responsibility.” Lexa’s smile falters. This situation is sounding very familiar. “He....he lives in Chicago now. Married. Two kids.”

“Sounds like he might understand what you’re going through.” Blue eyes are staring at her sympathetically.

Shaking her head again, Lexa flares her nostrils and looks out the window. “Yeah, maybe. But there’s no eject button on a triple-seven. I’d have gone down with the ship.”

The waitress appears just then to top off Lexa’s coffee, effectively ending the conversation there. They are quiet for a moment.

“We should talk about last night,” Clarke says. She sips the last of her Coke through the straw, making a loud slurping sound that grates on Lexa’s ears but she can’t find it in her to be annoyed. “But you should know I don’t regret it.”

“I don’t either,” Lexa says, but is quiet then because she doesn’t know what else to say.

Clarke does, of course.

“I probably broke like a hundred rules. I could probably lose my job.”

The  _ pococurante _ manner in which Clarke says this almost makes Lexa laugh out loud. This woman is something else. “Well, I’m not going to tell your boss.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that,” Clarke says, her lips twitching in amusement. Then she stares out the window for a moment. “I would love to say that I want to take you on a proper date, court you the way you deserve, get to know you. But right now I can’t.”

Lexa waits quietly. Clarke doesn’t mince words and Lexa is grateful for it.

“I am immensely attracted to you,” Clarke says, turning her eyes to meet Lexa’s. “You are amazing. Smart, brave, and  _ God, _ so beautiful.” She smiles softly at Lexa’s blush. “And when this investigation is over, I hope you will give me a chance. But right now? We need to focus.”

_ We,  _ Lexa thinks.  _ Clarke said WE need to focus. _ The implication of that sentence blooms in Lexa’s chest.  _ We are on the same team.  _

Voicing Lexa’s thoughts, Clarke says, “In order to figure out what happened to your plane, we need everyone’s minds working together. This is a really tough case. Maybe the toughest one I’ve ever seen.”

“Really?” That surprises Lexa.

“Yeah,” Clarke answers. She pokes at her mostly-eaten pancakes with her fork, making tiny puncture holes in the top. “I mean, I haven’t worked many big accidents like this. Airliners are actually really safe, as I’m sure you know.”

Lexa nods. She does know.

“I’ve worked a couple small ones involving big planes, but nothing to this level. Small planes? Absolutely. But even in almost all the big accidents I’ve read about or that any of my colleagues have worked on, there’s a clue of  _ some _ kind that points the investigators in the right direction. Even if the airplane is in a million pieces.”

Lexa nods slowly. “And in this case you’ve got everything you could need and no answers at all.”

“Right!” Clarke exclaims. “I don’t need it to be like a big flashing neon sign or anything - my team is smart enough, we could figure it out with some clues. But we’ve got  _ nothing. _ We have the entire airplane, all the flight data, all the passengers,  _ you _ … and still, nothing.”

Clarke sighs, looking deep in thought. 

“Talk it out,” Lexa suggests. “I’m sure this is also against rules but…”

“Who cares,” Clarke laughs. “I’ve already broken every other rule. So why not?” After a minute, she says, “Okay, well, let’s think about this…There are four main reasons for airplane crashes: weather, mechanical failure, pilot error and terrorism. The weather was fine, we know that.”

“Yes, it was clear. Basically unlimited visibility.”

“Right. So the weather is out. Mechanical failure? Duh!” Clarke laughs. “The engines failed. So obviously there was some kind of mechanical failure, but the question is  _ why? _ ” 

Lexa tries to smile but can’t.

“Pilot error,” Clarke continues, flipping her hands palms up. “Frankly, I can’t see any evidence that you and Bellamy did anything wrong. I know I don’t need to tell you that. You did your checklists, the airplane was configured right, you kept the cockpit sterile. So let’s just cross that one off for now.”

“But without - ”

“I know. Without definitive proof to exonerate you, you can’t fly again. That’s what I’m trying to do. The last one is terrorism but there’s also no indication that it was that, either.”

“So it’s just basically a mystery,” Lexa states, flatly.

“Yes,” Clarke agrees.

Lexa feels like her heart is falling.

“Don’t worry,” Clarke assures her, taking Lexa’s hands in her own. “I will figure it out. I promise you.”

_ How can you promise that? _ Lexa thinks, despondently.

Clarke picks up her glass, empty except for the remaining ice cubes. There’s a tiny bit of watery Coke at the bottom of the glass. Clarke brings the glass to her lips and tips it up, trying to get the last few drops of sugary soda. The ice, however, has begun to melt and has stuck together, creating a solid block of ice in the glass. 

Clarke tips the glass higher, coaxing the liquid at the bottom into her mouth. As she does, the ice block becomes dislodged and slides up against Clarke’s face, hitting her nose and upper lip. She flinches.

Lexa chuckles, but her laughter dies on her lips when Clarke suddenly slams the glass on the table, her eyes wide. She stares at Lexa for a moment, seemingly shocked by something.

“What’s wrong?” Lexa asks.

Clarke says nothing for a moment, staring at her. Eyes wide and not blinking. Then she stares into her Coke glass for a minute, then back up at Lexa.

“Clarke?”

“You flew over Canada.”

Lexa is confused. “Yeah… you kind of have to in order to get to Alaska from the east…”

Clarke’s mouth drops open and then snaps shut. She suddenly reaches for her wallet, throws some bills on the table, and stands up. She holds her hand out for Lexa.

“Come on, Captain. I think I know what happened to your airplane.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger! Dun dun DUNNNNNN! #sorrynotsorry.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and Gentlemen... Clarke Griffin and her amazing BRAIN!!!!
> 
> As usual, this story is *acutely* unrealistic in a lot of ways, BUUUUUUUT....... we're just gonna go with it, k? ;)
> 
> A humongous thank you to Underthecovers. Seriously. Best beta/idea-talker EVER. Talking to her yesterday changed the entire trajectory of the rest of this story. If you haven't read her stuff, GO DO IT NOW. End of PSA.. Bing-bong. You are now free to move about the cabin.

**September 30**

**10:52:11**

“We already tried that.”

Russell Lightbourne, a middle-aged mechanical engineer-turned-investigator with startlingly light-colored eyes and an expressive smile, sits on the edge of one of the chairs facing Clarke’s desk in her office in the NTSB headquarters. He almost sounds apologetic; as though he regrets the fact that he has to tell his boss that her idea is wrong.

“No, you tried it at extremely low temperatures - less than minus twenty centigrade. I’m telling you to try it warmer.”

_ “Warmer?” _ Russell’s eyebrows raise up. “Wouldn’t  _ less _ ice form when the temperatures are warmer?”

“Less individual ice crystals, maybe.” Clarke leans back in her chair, folding her hands and placing them behind her head. Lexa, leaning against the credenza, can’t help but notice how that position makes Clarke’s chest jut out appealingly. “But it’s like snow. You know how in the midwest and really cold places, the snow is so dry and cold that it can’t stick together? You can’t make a snowman in South Dakota - the snow is too dry. It won’t stick. But in places like here in DC, you can because the snow is warmer and wetter.”

Russell contemplates this and Lexa can actually see his mind starting to grasp what Clarke is saying.

“Right… so you’re saying when the fuel temperature warms up, the ice crystals that are  _ already  _ in the fuel kind of clump together.”

“Exactly.”

Lexa stares, open-mouthed.

“So,” Russell continues, “what are you hypothesizing happened then? They formed a clump and blocked the fuel pipes?”

Clarke is staring at the junction of the wall and the ceiling. She purses her lips, thinking. Lexa thinks Clarke is absolutely the sexiest woman she has ever seen. Her brain alone is enough to make Lexa swoon, but to have the looks too… it’s unreal.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, because the fuel pipes are wide enough that it would be extremely unlikely that any amount of ice could block them, especially with the fuel flowing so quickly.”

Russell is thinking too. The amount of brainpower in this room right now is slightly intimidating for Lexa.

“There’s got to be a spot where it would bottleneck, though.” Russell squeezes his eyes closed tightly and pinches the bridge of his nose. He lifts a finger and traces it through the air, as though following a map in his mind. 

_ He’s drawing out the fuel system, _ Lexa realizes.

Suddenly, he snaps his fingers. “I’ve got it.”

“What?” Clarke lurches forward, her hands flat on her desk. She looks like a kid about to open the biggest birthday present of their life.

“The FOHE.”

“The what?” Lexa asks. She just flies planes; she has no idea how the mechanics work.

“Fuel oil heat exchanger,” Clarke supplies. “In simple terms, it’s a system that heats up the fuel before it enters the engines. If the fuel is too cold, the engines have to work a lot harder to use it. The FOHE uses the hot oil that lubricates the engines to heat these metal tubes that the fuel flows through on its way into the engine. This would melt any ice crystals that might have formed in the fuel while the airplane was flying through really cold conditions.”

“Yes,” Russell confirms. “Imagine it like a whole bunch of metal drinking straws all together in a clump. If you look at it from the end, it would look almost like honeycomb - a bunch of holes. The metal would be really hot because the hot engine oil is heating it. So when the cold fuel arrives there to flow through those tubes - or drinking straws as I mentioned - the ice would melt on contact and the fuel would be heated on its way through to the engines.”

“ _ But _ ,” says Clarke, “if the fuel was warming up and the ice crystals got… sticky, I guess… and then a sudden throttle increase happened and required a higher intake of fuel…”

“Then the ‘sticky ice,’” Russell says, using air quotes, “could possibly clog the heat exchanges. Both of them. At the same time.”

Clarke turns to Lexa. “You said you didn’t have to touch the autopilot for most of the flight, right?”

“Yeah,” Lexa answers. “The flight was so smooth that the engine power pretty much stayed stable the entire time.”

“Until you came in to land, right?”

“Right.”

Russell smiles. “And your altitude had been decreasing and the fuel was warming. And then you hit the gas, so to speak and all the sticky ice got sucked up against the flat face of the heat exchange.”

“Call Boeing,” Clarke says. “I bet you dollars to doughnuts that’s what happened. Have them set up the test in their Seattle lab.” She casts an apologetic look at Lexa. “I’ll be on the next flight out.”

  
  


**September 30**

**20:40:08**

The soft knock on the door of her hotel room catches Lexa off guard - she isn’t expecting anyone.

“Clarke!” She smiles when she opens the door to reveal the blonde leaning casually against the door frame. “Come in.” She steps back to allow Clarke into the room.

“I wanted to stop by and see you before I leave.” 

“What time is your flight?” Lexa glances around the room. “Sit down. Anywhere is fine.”

Clarke parks her butt on the edge of the bed. “Ten thirty. It’s a red-eye.”

Lexa cringes, sitting down beside Clarke. “Fun stuff.”

Clarke laughs. “It’s okay. I have my neck pillow. I’ll sleep on the plane.”

“Ah, that’s right. I forget that people who aren’t the crew can actually sleep on airplanes,” Lexa sasses, her eyes narrowing in jest.

“Do you fly a lot of red-eyes?” Clarke asks, leaning back on her hands and regarding Lexa with curious blue eyes.

Lexa shrugs. “Sometimes. At first I didn’t, but once I started flying the bigger jets I did it a little more often. Triple sevens often do trans-oceaning flights; that’s what they’re made for, really. So oftentimes those kinds of long-haul flights end up turning into red-eye flights.”

“Huh..” Clarke smiles. “That’s interesting! Time change must be really weird.”

Lexa gives a soft chuckle. “Yeah, it can be. There was a time when I first started flying the seven-seven-sevens where I had the Seattle to Moscow or Moscow back to Seattle flight like three times per month. It was kind of crazy. Especially flying back to Seattle. The flight path took us kind of up and over Greenland, Iceland and northern Canada. It cut some time off the flight, and with the time difference it made it very confusing.”

“How long of a flight is that?”

Exhaling, Lexa thinks. “Well, it depends on the wind. But usually just under eleven hours.”

Clarke thinks about that, trying to calculate the time difference. “So…”

“Yeah, so we’d get here before we left.”

Clarke bursts out laughing. “That’s so weird! If you left at, like, three in the afternoon Moscow time, you’d land at, what, two-forty-five Seattle time? The same day?”

“Yep!” Lexa grins. “You’d get a do-over on your day. Besides, it was kind of fun to think that you had breakfast in Russia, lunch over Greenland, and dinner in Seattle.”

“Wow,” Clarke stares at her. “What a crazy, interesting life.”

Lexa smiles fondly. “Yes. But what I remember most from those flights is the northern lights.”

Clarke’s eyes widen. “Really! I’ve always wanted to see those!”

Wistfully, Lexa closes her eyes, visualizing. “There’s no better place to see them than from thirty thousand feet.” She opens her eyes and looks at Clarke. “What am I supposed to do now? You’re going to Seattle to do experiments and I’m just… hung up in suspense here.”

Reaching over, Clarke grabs Lexa’s hands and squeezes them. 

“Go home. There’s no reason for you to stay in DC during this. When the final report is ready to be issued, there’ll be a hearing and you guys will come back for that. But until then? Go home. Do things you like to do. Spend time with your dog, with your family.”

“But…” Lexa wants to say,  _ I don’t know how. I don’t know what I like to do. I don’t know who I am anymore. _ And, to her surprise, she also wants to say,  _ I’ll miss you. _

Leaning forward, Clarke plants a soft, sweet kiss to Lexa’s lips.

“Go home, Lexa. And wait for me.”

There are so many different ways Clarke could mean that, but Lexa doesn’t ask. She just kisses her back and pulls her down onto the bed.

  
  


**October 6**

**19:31:02**

It’s been five days since Lexa flew from DC to Portland (six days, technically, since Clarke left DC) and in that five days, Lexa has thought about Clarke probably upwards of a thousand times. She finds herself staring into space at all random times: mid-sentence with Anya, while showering, while walking Titus or while loading the dishwasher.

“You’ve got it bad,” Anya had said that first day after Lexa’s sentence trailed off for the third or fourth time while recounting her time in DC. “And leave it to you to finally listen to me and go look for a one night stand and come back with the lead investigator of your own case!”

“Well, when you put it  _ that _ way…” Lexa had mumbled, glaring at her sister. But she had to laugh. It was pretty laughable.

Lexa is cooking herself (and Titus, since she often shares her food with him) a late-ish dinner of chicken stir-fry when her phone emits her text message alert tone on the counter.

**Hey, are you busy? Have time for**

**a phone call?**

Lexa’s heart rate kicks up a notch.  _ Clarke. _

“Hey Siri, call Clarke Griffin,” Lexa says aloud to her phone, activating the voice command function since her hands are covered in raw chicken. She uses her elbow to hit the speaker button.

“Calling… Clarke Griffin,” says the robotic voice of her phone and then the sound of ringing fills the kitchen.

“Hey!” Clarke says, sounding happy. “How’s it going?”

“Good!” Lexa says back, feeling as happy as Clarke sounds. “Just cooking dinner. How’s it going in Seattle?”

Lexa hears a shuffling sound and what sounds like a car door shutting, and then Clarke says, “Fine. Slow. All the tests are showing that Russell’s and my hypothesis is correct, but they have to test all these other variables to make sure nothing else could reasonably produce the same results.” She sighs. “It’s tedious, but necessary. Ultimately, it’s going as well as it could.”

“That’s good,” Lexa says, and she feels hope bubbling in her chest. She hopes with every fiber of her being that these experiments prove the hypothesis correct. This would exonerate her and Bellamy, and everything could return to semi-normal.

“I’m sure I shouldn’t be sharing any of this with you,” Clarke laughs. “But considering what  _ else _ we’ve shared, it seems like less of a big deal.”

Laughing, Lexa stirs the food in the pan. “I won’t tell anyone that you told me.”

“I know.” In the background of the call, the sound of a turn signal can be heard.

“Are you in the car?”

“Yeah, driving back to the hotel. Are you familiar with Seattle?”

“I guess so,” Lexa says. “At least from a tourist standpoint. It’s only a three hour drive from here, so it’s a good weekend road trip destination.” 

Titus comes running in from the backyard, lopes into the kitchen, plops his butt on the floor beside Lexa and looks at her expectantly. She uses her elbow to flick a piece of green pepper off the counter. Titus catches it, swallows it whole, and waits for more.

“Oh good!” Clarke exclaims. “Then you can help me figure out what to do in my free time. I’m here until at least Tuesday and I have nothing happening all weekend. It doesn’t make sense for me to fly all the way back out to DC and then back here for two days, so I’m just going to stay over the weekend.”

Lexa speaks before her brain can stop her. “Why don’t you come down here?”

Clarke pauses for a second. “To Portland?”

Lexa quickly backpeddles. “Well, I mean, you don’t  _ have _ to, but… I mean, if you wanted to… that is, if it’s not - ”

“Sure,” Clarke says. “I’ll come down.”

Surprised, Lexa snaps her mouth shut and blinks. “Really?”

“Yeah.” The relaxed tone of Clarke’s voice puts her at ease. “I’ve never been to Portland, so why not? I have no meetings all weekend.”

Titus huffs and flops in a heap on the kitchen floor, realizing that no more tidbits of food are coming his way.

“Awesome,” Lexa says, smiling ear to ear.

The road noise in the background of the call stops and Lexa hears the click and  _ ding _ of the car turning off.

“Want me to get a hotel in Portland?” Clarke asks, and  _ that _ is a tough question to answer.

Lexa is worried. If she says yes, Clarke might think that she doesn’t want to spend that much time with her. If she says no, Clarke might think that she’s coming on too strong. It was already a stretch to invite her down to Portland for the weekend. This is the lead investigator of  _ her airplane crash  _ for God’s sake!  _ What was I thinking? _

“Let me rephrase that,” Clarke comes to the rescue. “I am fully aware that we are treading dangerously here. But I am totally into you, as you know. I do not think that you invited me down to Portland as just a friend. If I’m wrong about that, please let me know. I won’t be offended.”

Lexa almost laughs. Clarke is nothing if not direct!

“But,” she continues, “I am happy to get a hotel if you’re worried about how it would go if the two of us were together all weekend.”

“I’m not,” Lexa says quickly and firmly. “I was more worried about how you’d feel about it.”

Clarke laughs, a delightfully cheery sound. “You should know that I will  _ always  _ tell you how I feel about something!”

Chuckling, Lexa tips the pan up and scoops stir-fry onto her plate and into Titus’s food bowl which she has placed on the counter. She stoops and puts it down on the floor for him. “It’s hot, careful,” she says to the dog. He, of course, pays her no mind and shoves his snout into the bowl, only to jump back and look at Lexa forlornly. She rolls her eyes fondly at him and takes her plate to the table.

“Who are you talking to?” Clarke asks.

“Titus. My dog.”

A pause. “Did you just tell him to be careful because his food is hot?”

“Sure did!” Lexa answers, grinning. “We are having stir-fry for dinner. I cook it plain and then add soy sauce to mine, because the sodium isn’t good for dogs.” Lexa fervently hopes that Clarke doesn’t think she’s insane, although she’s not sure she could blame her if she did.

“That…” Clarke sounds like she can’t quite come up with what to say, “... is probably the cutest thing I’ve ever heard!” She laughs, and again, Lexa wants to hear more of that sound. “I can’t wait to meet your spoiled doggie!”

“He’s a funny guy,” Lexa says, watching Titus messily eat his dinner. “He’ll like you.”

“Most dogs do,” Clarke replies. “Okay, listen, I’ve been up since six o’clock this morning and been in meetings and stuff all day. I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I’m going to grab some food, take a shower and go to sleep. I’ll check out of my hotel in the morning and head south. You said it’s a three hour drive?”

“Depends on how fast you drive.”

“Lexa. This is me we are talking about.”

Lexa laughs boisterously. “Okay, yeah. Maybe two and a half.”

“Awesome. Text me your address. I’ll share my ETA with you once I leave.”

“Will do.”

They both pause for a moment. 

“Good night, Lexa. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Clarke. Sweet dreams.”

  
  


**October 7**

**12:01:39**

Lexa is a nervous wreck, which is really confusing to her because it’s just  _ Clarke _ . It’s not like this is the first time she’s seen her. It’s not even like she doesn’t know how Clarke feels about her! It makes no sense for her to be this anxious, but she is.

Clarke’s shared ETA says she’ll be pulling into Lexa’s driveway in less than five minutes, having driven from Seattle in - surprise! - two hours and thirty-six minutes. Apparently, Clarke Griffin has a lead foot.

Lexa usually keeps her house fairly clean so it hadn’t been a difficult task to tidy up for Clarke’s arrival. She does have a guest room, and there is a bed in there, but she is fairly certain Clarke won’t be sleeping in there, so she made sure to put clean sheets on  _ her _ bed. 

Titus seems to understand that they’re going to be having company over. Lexa had given him a bath that morning. Titus is unusual in that he doesn’t mind baths - in fact, he loves them. As soon as he heard the water turn on in the bathtub in the spare bathroom, he had galloped down the hall and flown right into the tub where he splashed around gleefully. Most people can’t get their boxer dogs into the bathtub; Lexa can’t get hers  _ out. _ Once she’d successfully dragged him out of the tub and dried him off, she’d tied his best bandana around his neck. 

For the last half an hour, Titus has been parked by the front window, staring out. He stands with his front paws up on the windowsill, his barrel chest jutting out and his muscles flexed.

“You’re stacked,” Lexa tells her dog, and he turns and looks at her over his shoulder. “You look so handsome, buddy.”

Titus tilts his head at her and goes back to looking out the window. His stumpy tail wags furiously as a car pulls into the driveway.

A few moments later, there is a knock on the door. “Sit,” Lexa tells Titus, and his butt hits the floor in record time. “Stay.”

Gathering up her courage (why is she so dang  _ nervous? _ ) Lexa walks calmly to the door and opens it. Titus stays where he is, although he’s wagging furiously and Lexa knows he wants to come to the door. 

And there she is. Clarke Griffin. She’s wearing black leggings, a dark green shirt and a denim jacket with wool on the collar and cuffs. On her feet are a pair of white Converse All-Stars. Her hair is in gentle waves and her blue eyes match the October sky behind her. A black duffel bag is slung over her shoulder.

“Hey!” She says, grinning. “I made it!”

Lexa just stares at Clarke. She can’t believe she’s  _ here. _ In front of  _ her  _ door. Looking like  _ that. _ Before she can stop herself, Lexa leans forward, grips Clarke’s shoulder and places a soft, quick kiss on her lips. 

“Sorry,” Lexa blushes. “I just… you just…”

“Lexa,” Clarke says, a smirk on her lips. “Do not  _ ever _ apologize for greeting me like that.”

Lexa laughs. “Okay, got it. Come on in!” She steps back and holds the door open for Clarke. “Let me take your bag.”

“Thanks,” Clarke says, handing her bag over. “Oh my God! This must be Titus!” She turns her attention to the dog who is so excited that he’s practically vibrating in place, but he minds his command and stays sitting, even though he’s wagging so hard his whole rear end is practically bouncing up and down.

“Yep, that’s him.”

Clarke leans forward toward Titus, who can barely contain his excitement at this new person in the house who is paying attention to him. 

“Shake?” Clarke holds out a hand toward the dog. Titus carefully places a paw in her outstretched palm. She grins. “What a gentleman!”

“Good boy, T,” Lexa praises and Titus wags his whole body.

“Can I love on him?”

“Please. I think he’ll combust if you don’t.”

Lowering herself to the floor and sitting criss-cross-applesauce, Clarke flops Titus’s ears around and he climbs into her lap, stump tail going a hundred miles per minute. He licks her face, her hands and, for good measure, her ear. “That tickles!” She shrieks, and Lexa chuckles.

“Sorry, he can be a little overzealous with his kisses.”

Clarke smiles at Lexa from the floor. “I told you I don’t mind being greeted with kisses. That applies to your dog, too.”

“All right, all right, Titus, leave her alone. Come on, buddy.” Titus reluctantly climbs off of Clarke’s lap and lets her stand up, but he stays right beside her, leaning against her leg. “I told you he’d like you.”

Clarke pats the dog on the top of his head and he looks at her appreciatively. “You sure did. He’s adorable. And so is your house!” Clarke looks around. “It’s so… you!”

Glancing around too, Lexa isn’t sure what Clarke means. Her house isn’t big, but it’s not tiny either. The downstairs has an open floor plan, which means that the living room, dining area and foyer area are all kind of one big room. There are big windows in the front of the house, which was one of the reasons Lexa liked this house so much - the natural light is great. The kitchen is slightly more closed off, but only by a half-wall. This allows people to see each other and converse no matter which room they’re in downstairs. There’s also a bathroom, a laundry room and a closet. The upstairs has two bedrooms and two full bathrooms. 

“Do you live here by yourself? No roommates?”

“Nope, just me and Titus. Although my sister comes and stays here periodically. Usually when I’m flying. She stays with Titus.”

“Nice,” Clarke says, wandering over to the built-in bookshelf in the living room and inspecting the books on the top shelf. “You must be close with your sister, then?”

“I guess so,” Lexa answers. “We didn’t used to be, but now I suppose you could say we are.”

Lexa realizes she doesn’t know much about Clarke’s life. And Clarke doesn’t know much about hers, either.

“What about you?” Lexa inquires. “Siblings?”

“Three brothers,” Clarke says absently as she scans the books on the next shelf down. After a moment, she turns to Lexa, smiling. “All older than me.”

“Ah,” Lexa says. “That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Your fortitude. You had to survive three older brothers; no wonder you’re so tough!”

Clarke laughs, and the sound hits Lexa right in the chest. She  _ loves _ that sound. “They did teach me a thing or two about not taking shit from people.”

“Are you close with them now?”

“Two of them, yes.”

“And the third?” Lexa regrets it as soon as she says it; she’s prying and she knows it.

A shadow passes over Clarke’s face and then disappears as quickly as it came. She turns back to the bookshelf. “So you like to read, huh?”

_ That topic is off limits,  _ Lexa notes. “Yeah.” She joins Clarke at the bookshelf, running her finger over the spines of the books. “There’s not much to do on layovers, sometimes. I usually read e-books now, but there’s something to be said for a good, old-fashioned paper book.”

“I concur,” Clarke says. “Whenever I hold a really old book, I always wonder about all the different people who have held this book before me. Like, who were they? What were their lives like?”

“I never thought about it that way.”

Clarke taps a certain book, and Lexa smiles. It’s  _ Highest Duty,  _ by Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the captain of US Airways flight 1549, who landed an Airbus in the Hudson river in 2009. 

Lexa huffs a laugh. “Yeah. Ironic, right?” She pulls the book from the shelf and thumbs through it. “It’s a good book, though.”

“I know,” Clarke says. “I’ve read it.”

“You have?” Lexa is surprised.

Nodding, Clarke says, “I actually know some of the guys that worked on that investigation. There are some similarities between that crash and yours. Namely the lack of engine power and altitude, both.”

Lexa is quiet; her stomach tightens at the memories of September tenth. She can hear the warning alarms in the cockpit and she can see the ground coming up fast...

Clarke notices (because she notices everything) and turns to face Lexa. She takes her face in her hands. “Stay here with me,” she instructs. “Today. On the ground.”

Titus appears from nowhere and sits on Lexa’s foot. His warm weight against her leg and Clarke’s hands cupping her jaw bring her back to the present.

“Kiss me,” Lexa whispers. “Please.”

“You  _ know _ I won’t say no to that…”

Clarke leans forward and just as their lips are about to meet, the front door bursts open.

“Sistaaaaa!” Anya squawks, then stops short. Her eyes widen in surprise and then her face splits into a wide grin. “And  _ you _ must be Clarke!”

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I def recommend Highest Duty for real. Such a good book.
> 
> Comment below and tell me YOUR favorite book!
> 
> Also, come see me on Tumblr mss-mysterygirl
> 
> xoxoxo


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well!!! It's 6:35pm PST on 12/31/2020 so I've managed to get this out before the new year! WOOHOOOOO!!!! 
> 
> May 2021 bring us all more calm and peace than it's predecessor did!
> 
> ***SMUT WARNING***
> 
> Thank you to Underthecovers. You are my fave!

**October 7**

**18:31:09**

In the six-ish hours since Hurricane Anya made landfall at Lexa’s house, they’ve gone to two different breweries (for tiny samples of different beers), visited two different neighborhoods of Portland, gotten artisan pizza from a food cart and are now eating ice cream from a shop called Salt & Straw which is famous for its bizarre combinations of flavors. They have the typical flavors - brownie, chocolate chip cookie dough, mint chocolate chip and vanilla - but they also have really odd flavors like honey and lavender, pear and bleu cheese, arbequina olive oil, and sea salt with caramel ribbons. 

Lexa went for cookie dough but Clarke said she couldn’t come all the way to Portland and go to Salt & Straw only to get a flavor she could get at any Baskin Robbins back home. She had chosen pear and bleu cheese. Anya had picked one of the monthly flavors: pumpkin praline cheesecake.

“How is it?” Anya asks, catching a drip of ice cream with her tongue before it plops onto the sidewalk. The weather is mild and they are walking through the neighborhood of Northwest Portland, which is known for old fashioned houses that have been converted into quaint shops, cute boutiques, teahouses, coffee shops and funky restaurants.

Clarke is looking at her ice cream as though she can’t quite figure out what to make of it. “Well… it’s unlike anything I’ve ever eaten before, that’s for sure!”

Lexa laughs. “Is that a good thing?”

Shrugging, Clarke takes a long, slow lick of her ice cream and Lexa’s brain momentarily stalls. She can really relate to that ice cream right now. 

“I guess so,” Clarke answers. “It tastes good, it’s just incongruous with what my brain expects from ice cream.”

“Incongruous,” Anya scoffs but her eyes are kind. “You’re a brainiac, aren’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Clarke says, looking at Anya with a mixture of amusement and irony on her face. “I work for the NTSB.”

“Good.” Anya pokes Lexa in the shoulder. “You’ll need all your skills to wrangle this one.”

“Hey!” Lexa protests. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Anya’s eyes widen, feigning innocence. “Nothing at all, dear sister. Nothing bad anyway.”

“I think I can manage,” Clarke winks at Lexa before pressing a kiss to her cheek. Her lips are cold from the ice cream.

They find a small park, no bigger than half a city block, and wander in. The sun is mostly down but the air isn’t cold, so they find a spot on a slight hill and sit on the grass. 

“So how’d you figure out what happened to Lexa’s airplane?” Anya asks conversationally, as though it’s not against probably twenty rules for Clarke to talk about it.

Clarke, however, seems to have no reservations. 

“It was really weird,” She says, licking ice cream off her upper lip. “It was as if whatever had happened had just disappeared… like magic or something. So I knew it had to be something that had the  _ capability _ to disappear. Electricity. Wind. Ice. That kind of thing.”

Anya seems intrigued. “And so you did all these tests to figure out which of those it was?”

Clarke tips her head side to side. “Kind of. It’s hard to test for those things because they’re only present in certain conditions. But there was nothing obviously wrong with the electrical system, and the weather was fine so it probably wasn’t due to wind. Besides, I’ve never seen wind cause two engines to stop working at the same moment. So when I started thinking about ice, my spidey senses just kind of went ‘zzzzzzzing!’”

Anya cracks up. “How do they go, Clarke?”

Clarke smirks. “‘Zzzzzzing!’”

Sitting kind of across from both of them on the grass, Lexa watches the exchange with amusement. Even though she had been privy to Clarke’s eureka moment right there in the diner, it was still interesting to hear how she had come to it.

“So what’s going to happen now?” Having finished her ice cream, Anya leans back on her hands. 

“I’m going to go back up to Seattle and finish up there. The final write-up of results should be done by the end of next week and sent to me at the NTSB. Then my team and I will put together the final report.” Clarke glances at Lexa with a small smile. “Then, Lexa and the rest of the crew will come back to DC and we’ll have the final hearing. Once she’s cleared, the FAA will reinstate her pilot’s license.”

“And everything will be back to normal?” Anya asks.

“Yep, back to normal.”

Lexa stares at the grass, suddenly unable to finish her ice cream. She knows she and Bellamy will be cleared of responsibility for the crash. Clarke, with her amazing brain, has made sure of that. But even though she will be free from blame, she knows that things will never be ‘normal’ again. Regardless of what caused the accident, she experienced it and that cannot be undone. The FAA might allow her to fly again, but what if  _ she _ can’t?

“You okay, kid?” Anya taps Lexa’s knee.

Lexa swallows hard and forces a smile onto her face. “Y-yeah,” she cringes as her stutter gives her away. “Fine.”

Clarke and Anya clearly don’t believe her but neither of them press the issue, for which Lexa is grateful, but Clarke scoots a tiny bit closer to Lexa. It’s a tiny gesture, but doesn’t go unnoticed by Lexa. Or Anya, apparently, who raises one eyebrow in mock disinterest. 

“Okay, you lovebirds. Let’s get going. I’ve got an idea for the evening.”

Lexa and Clarke exchange glances - Lexa’s worried and Clarke’s intrigued.

“I like your sister,” Clarke murmurs to Lexa once they all stand up and are walking back toward where they parked. “She’s fun.”

“She’s something,” Lexa drawls, but she’s smiling. Anya is probably the most important person in her life (Titus is up there with her, but he’s not a person) and it is important to her that whoever she is dating gets along with Anya.

_ Dating? _ Lexa is caught off guard by her own thoughts. 

As if reading her mind, Clarke slips her hand into Lexa’s, lacing their fingers together. She doesn’t say anything, but the action says plenty.

  
  


**22:11:55**

Clarke, Lexa, Anya, Anya’s roommate Erica and Erica’s girlfriend Lyra are all sprawled out across Lexa’s living room furniture, playing a game of ‘Never Have I Ever.’ Lexa is sitting on one end of the couch with her feet propped on the coffee table. Clarke is sitting on the other end of the couch with her feet propped in Lexa’s lap. Lyra is sitting on the floor, leaning up against the recliner, perpendicular to the couch. Erica is sitting  _ in  _ the recliner sideways with her legs draped over one of the arms. Anya is sitting on a beanbag chair across from the couch where Lexa and Clarke are.

Everyone is holding what looks like a tiny abacus, with beads on a string. On the coffee table is a pile of cards with things written on them such as “kissed a stranger” or “used something other than toilet paper to wipe because there was no toilet paper” or “farted loudly in public” or “had sex in a public place.” The premise of the game is that everyone starts with ten points (ten beads on one side of the ‘abacus’) and every time someone is guilty of the action on the card, they lose a point. When they lose a point, they move one of their beads to the other side of the abacus. 

In this case, they’ve added alcohol to the game. Now whenever anyone loses a point, they have to take a decent sized sip of their drink. Anya mixed the drinks (rum and coke for everyone except Lexa who can’t stand rum, so she drinks vodka coke instead) so of course they are very strong.

“Okay,” Lyra grabs a card from the box. “My turn to read. Everyone ready?” She flips the card around. “Never have I ever… eaten a spider.”

“What?” Complains Anya, laughing. “That’s impossible to say! They say we eat spiders in our sleep!”

Silently, Clarke slides her bead over and takes a sip of her drink.

“You’ve eaten a spider?!” Lexa shrieks at Clarke from across the couch. Lexa hasn’t done a lot of the things in the game, but she is a lightweight and having been guilty of three or four of the cards in the last fifteen minutes (things like “dropped an unopened tampon or pad out of purse in public” and “sneezed a booger onto my face”), she’s getting slightly loose.

“Once,” Clarke giggles. “As a dare.”

Clarke, on the other hand, has done  _ a lot _ of things. But that doesn’t surprise Lexa at all. Clarke is spontaneous and fun. Of course she’s done things like “gone skinny dipping” and “been drunk at a county fair”.

“Nope, fuck that,” Erica pipes up. “No way.”

“Not a fan of spiders?” Clarke teases.

“Don’t ever go to Australia,” Lexa says pointedly. “There are some  _ huge _ spiders there. They have these spiders called huntsman spiders. They can get to be like eight inches wide, toe to toe.”

Lyra starts laughing. “Spiders don’t have toes!”

“You’re missing the point!” Lexa insists, laughing. “Trust me, they’re hairy and terrifying! And I’m not even all that afraid of spiders. But I’m afraid of them!”

“Wait a minute,” Clarke interrupts. “Aren’t they harmless?”

“Yeah,” Lexa answers. “But I don’t care if they’re venomous or not - any spider that’s bigger than my face is scary.”

“Fuck spiders!” Erica yells.

“I feel like,” Anya says, holding up one finger, “there are probably some spiders in Australia that are big enough that fucking them is not a physical impossibility.”

“Can we move on?” Lyra says exasperatedly, even though she’s still laughing. “Clarke lost a point. Anyone else?”

No one moves. 

“Okay,” Lyra says, putting the card on the bottom of the pile. “Your turn, Lex.”

Lexa leans forward and takes a card. “Never have I ever….” She flips it over. “Made out with someone in front of a group of people.”

Everyone except Lexa moves a bead.

“Aw, come on!” Clarke yells. “You’ve never made out with someone in front of a group of people?”

“Nope!” Lexa says, smirking. “Never have I ever.”

Lyra throws a wadded up receipt that she procured from God knows where and it bounces off the side of Lexa’s head. “I think you need to remedy that. You’re nowhere near drunk enough! There are three of us here besides you and Clarke - that counts as a group, does it not?”

Anya and Erica nod. 

“Well, go on then!” Lyra goads. “Scoot on over there!”

Lexa glances at Clarke who is looking at her with not-so-innocent, wide blue eyes.

Anya whoops. “Yeah, Lex, you know you need to live a little!”

Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the jovial atmosphere. Or maybe it’s the fact that Clarke is just  _ that _ attractive and any excuse to kiss her is good enough for Lexa. But whatever the reason, Lexa immediately tosses Clarke’s feet off her lap and crawls over. She leans Clarke back against the arm of the couch, cups her cheek and presses her lips to Clarke’s. A soft hum erupts from Clarke as their lips slide together. Lexa’s tongue slips against Clarke’s lower lip, asking for entry which Clarke is quick to grant.

Loud catcalls and hollers from the other three in the room break their concentration after a minute. 

“Move that bead, Lexa!” Erica howls.

Anya is laughing. “I feel like I need to bleach my brain.” She shakes her head. “That was far too hot considering you’re my little sister.”

Lexa bites her lip and crawls backward off of Clarke. Neither of them really feel like continuing the game at this point; they kind of want to pick up where they just left off.

“I have to pee,” Clarke announces, launching herself off the couch

“All right, come on,” Anya says, reaching for a card. “My turn. Never have I ever… fooled around with a coworker.”

“Ope,” Lyra says, and moves a bead.

“Actually…” Lexa mumbles. She moves a bead over, too. There was one girl from civilian flight school… technically that made them coworkers, of sorts.

“Atta girl!” Anya booms, moving a bead as well.

This time, it’s Erica who doesn’t move a bead. Clarke isn’t back yet but everyone is sure she’ll move a bead. Anya, Lexa and Lyra all take hearty swigs of their drinks.

A moment later, Clarke reappears. “What’d I miss?” 

“Fooled around with a coworker. Everyone except Erica drank.”

Clarke looks at Lexa with surprise. Lexa only smiles. “I’m just full of surprises.”

\---

The door had barely clicked closed behind Anya and Co. when Clarke and Lexa had flown together like magnets. They barely make it to Lexa’s bed before they’re all over each other. Alcohol only has a tiny bit to do with the fervent nature of their kisses. 

Clarke’s hands roam all over Lexa’s body. She peppers kisses on Lexa’s jaw, neck, the spot behind her ear, the juncture of her neck and shoulder and all along her collarbone, leaving Lexa panting with need.

They pull apart only long enough to sit up and pull their shirts off over their heads. They take the rest of their clothes off too, while they’re at it. Clarke’s hands find Lexa’s breasts, expertly pinching and rolling her nipples and Lexa can’t understand how anyone’s hands can feel so much like literal magic. It’s weird - her nipples have never been particularly sensitive before. It always added a nice layer of sensation but it was more the principle of it that was a turn-on rather than the actual feeling. 

But not anymore. 

As Clarke continues to play with Lexa’s nipples - pulling, pinching, rubbing in circles with her open palms - Lexa feels a strange sort of build-up happening. It almost feels like she has to sneeze but it’s coming from somewhere in the middle of her body instead of her nose. Instinctively, she pushes her chest out. 

“Clarke… what… what is…” Lexa’s head falls back as an unexpected moan pours out of her mouth. Something feels unbearably good but she can’t quite figure out what it is.  _ What is going on? _ She tries to ask but the words won’t come out.

Clarke uses the backs of her fingers to softly flick her nails over Lexa’s nipples. “It’s okay,” she murmurs. “You’re about to come. Don’t fight it.”

No sooner are those words out of Clarke’s mouth than the tingling sensation in Lexa’s midsection turns to a desperate ache and shoots downward, blooming in her lower abdomen. It’s akin to a normal orgasm but just not the same somehow. Lexa’s mouth drops open, her eyes squeeze closed and her fingers scrabble for purchase on Clarke’s shoulders as waves of pleasure roll over her. She’s drowning in it.

When her breathing finally slows down, Lexa opens her eyes. Clarke is rubbing her hands up and down Lexa’s upper arms. 

“You okay?” Clarke’s smile is gentle. 

“Wh-what was  _ that?”  _ Lexa gasps. She’s unnerved - she’s never experienced her body responding like that of its own accord before.

Leaning forward, Clarke brushes her lips against Lexa’s. She holds the side of Lexa’s neck, her thumb stroking over Lexa’s jawbone. “First time you’ve come like that?”

Lexa nods. For some reason, her eyes are welling up. The experience was so profound and almost frightening.

“Shh,” Clarke soothes. She kisses Lexa’s lips, then her neck, then makes her way down Lexa’s body. “It’s okay. I know it’s odd the first time you experience it.” Lexa can feel Clarke’s lips moving against her skin. “Let me make you feel good… again.”

In spite of the fact that she just orgasmed, Lexa’s clit is not sensitive. This is odd because she can still feel the fading tendrils of her orgasm, and usually she’s sensitive for the first couple minutes post-orgasm, but she hasn’t yet been touched below her waist. 

“Mmm…” Lexa hums as Clarke’s expert tongue finds her clit, swirling around it and pressing flat against it.. She’s too caught up to analyze anything anymore. Her fingers find their way into Clarke’s hair and she holds her right where she wants her. She can feel the pleasure building already; this won’t take long.

Lexa almost expects Clarke to edge her - bring her up to the precipice and leave her hanging there - but she doesn’t. One unexpected orgasm is enough surprises for the time being, apparently. 

“Yes..  _ yes.. _ ” Lexa sighs. Her head whips back against the pillow again as her body unleashes a second satisfying orgasm that has her writhing helplessly against Clarke’s face.  _ “Fuck!” _

Clarke makes her way back up Lexa’s body. Still panting, Lexa opens her eyes and finds herself drowning in cerulean blue.

“Hey,” Clarke hums, trailing a finger in circles around Lexa’s navel. 

“Hey yourself,” Lexa mumbles. Her fingers and toes are still tingly. She’s sated but not spent and without warning grabs Clarke by the waist and hauls her upward, guiding her until she’s got her exactly where she wants her. Clarke’s fingers grip the headboard of Lexa’s bed as she hovers just above Lexa’s mouth. Lexa loops her arms around Clarke’s thighs and pulls her down, making immediate contact.

“Ah!” Clarke shrieks, white-knuckling the headboard. 

Humming against her, Lexa licks Clarke in long, slow strokes from her entrance all the way up to her clit. Then uses the back of her tongue on the way back down. She flicks her tongue side to side, thrashing it against Clarke’s most sensitive spot, making her grind her hips down on Lexa’s face.

“Oh  _ fuck _ ,” Clarke moans, her hips jerking of their own volition. Her thighs tremble around Lexa’s head.

But Lexa has no plans to make this easy for Clarke. She brings her up to the brink of orgasm and then gently pushes Clarke backward and to the left, causing her to tumble onto her back, upside down in the bed. 

“Roll over,” Lexa instructs, leaning over so her lips are right up against the shell of Clarke’s ear.

Clarke obeys with alacrity, and Lexa nudges Clarke’s legs apart and settles between them, on her knees. She leans forward, grabs a fistful of Clarke’s hair and wraps it around her hand. She doesn’t pull hard, just puts a little pressure, causing Clarke to tip her head upward to avoid tension on her roots. With her free hand, Lexa teases Clarke’s clit again from behind. 

“Please…” Clarke sighs, begging.

“Please what? What do you need, baby?”

For a second, Clarke seems to have forgotten how to speak. Lexa doesn’t think Clarke is embarrassed; that doesn’t seem like her. It’s more likely that she’s so unbelievably desperate that she can’t form words for several seconds.

But then she does.

“I need you to fuck me,” she rasps. “ _ Now.” _

How can Lexa say no to that?

She slips one finger inside, because of course Clarke is totally soaking wet, and lets Clarke adjust to the intrusion for a few seconds before adding another. She keeps her pace maddeningly slow and Clarke is panting and whimpering in frustration.

This is out of character for Lexa; she’s usually a pretty gentle lover. Clarke just makes her feel things in a way that no one has before.

Come to think of it, Lexa hasn’t felt this comfortable with  _ anyone _ before. Her first ‘real’ dating experience had been a boy in high school.  _ That _ had obviously gone absolutely nowhere. He was a nice enough kid but she just wasn’t into it. At the time, her friends had joked that she was a late bloomer. But the reality was that she was plenty ‘bloomed,’ just a different kind of flower.

She had dated one girl seriously in the Air Force, but they’d had to keep it quiet. The military was not keen on homosexuality at the time (and arguably still isn’t, but that’s another matter) so they’d essentially had to sneak around like overgrown teenagers trying to avoid detection by their strict parents. The woman’s name was Costia and she was probably the only one Lexa had ever loved. They had shared a great many physical joys together. Unfortunately, Costia had been deployed to the Middle East and had not returned home alive.

After Costia, it had taken Lexa a  _ long _ time to even consider dating again. She’d gone on some dates here and there but nothing serious. When she’d gotten hired by the airline, she had briefly been in a relationship with another female pilot, Amy, but that had been cut short when Amy had transferred to United Airlines for higher pay. They were still friends on facebook and, last Lexa had seen, she was still working for United and was now married to a Barbie doll look-alike, living primarily in California, with three schnauzers and a chinchilla.

Lexa finds herself pulled back to the present by a loud moan from Clarke - signaling her proximity to orgasm. She redoubles her efforts, simultaneously speeding up and tugging harder on Clarke’s hair.

“Come on, let me hear you..” Lexa murmurs. 

“Ah,  _ fuck!”  _ Clarke squeals and Lexa can feel muscles contracting rhythmically, crazily, around her fingers. Lexa slows down, changing her angle, prolonging the pleasurable waves for Clarke as long as she can. Finally, Clarke’s head drops down against the mattress, her body going limp. 

“You give better than you get, I think,” Clarke pants, rolling half over so she’s facing Lexa over her shoulder.

“Doubtful,” Lexa smirks. 

“Guess I’ll just have to try again…” And with that, Clarke rolls Lexa back over again.

  
  


**October 8**

**08:49:29**

Lexa wakes up with soft blonde hairs tickling her nose and an arm and a leg draped across her body, possessively holding her close.

_ Clarke. _

Smiling, Lexa tips her head and peeks down at the sleeping woman. Clarke’s eyelashes flutter against the apples of her cheeks as she slowly stirs in response to Lexa’s movement. When blue eyes finally open, they meet Lexa’s green ones and Clarke smiles sleepily. 

“‘Morning,” she mumbles, lifting her head to press a kiss to Lexa’s chin. 

Clarke’s messy bedhead is adorable and Lexa can’t help the soft laugh that escapes her control. It boggles her mind how Clarke can go from wildly sexy to kitten-adorable and back again so effectively. Still sleepy, Clarke drops her head back down on Lexa’s chest.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Lexa replies, kissing the top of Clarke’s head and snuggling her closer. “Did you sleep well?”

“When we finally  _ slept, _ you mean?” There’s laughter in Clarke’s voice. “Yes, I did. Did you?”

“Mmm, very.”

The October sun is slanting in through the mesh curtains on the window with a kind of intense light, promising a crisp, fall morning. Lexa loves this time of year; the brightly colored leaves is one of her favorite things about Portland in the fall. It rains from about Halloween to the 4th of July, which doesn't bode well for anyone with seasonal depression. But the trade off is that the leaves of the deciduous trees stay brilliantly green all summer long. Between those and the coniferous trees that blanket the western part of Oregon (and the reason there is an evergreen tree on the Oregon license plate, even though Washington is the state called ‘the evergreen state’) the scenery is green all year round.

“Coffee?” Clarke asks, sitting up. The sheet falls away, exposing her breasts that Lexa could not seem to get enough of last night. 

Or this morning, apparently, because Lexa finds herself leaning forward to press a kiss to the rounded side of one breast and Clarke inhales sharply in response. 

They lose their train of thought pretty quickly after that.

One hour and a few orgasms each later, they finally make their way downstairs to make coffee and let Titus out of his crate.

Titus seems displeased with having been made to wait until almost ten o’clock in the morning to be released and fed. He fixes Lexa with a glare before nuzzling his nose into Clarke’s hand. He licks her hand while severely side-eyeing Lexa before trotting out through the dog door into the backyard to relieve himself.

Clarke laughs. “Your dog is like a snarky teenage boy.” She perches on one of the stools pulled up to the breakfast bar on the backside of the kitchen counter.

“Don’t I know it!” Lexa sighs, putting water into the Mr. Coffee. “He’s a brat.”

“A very cute and lovable brat, though,” Clarke allows just as Titus lopes back in through the dog door. He walks over to his food dish and thumps his paw on the floor. 

Clarke bursts out laughing and Lexa thinks it sounds like pealing bells. “Did he just  _ stomp his foot?” _

“Definitely.” Grinning, Lexa turns to the dog. “Just a second, buddy. I’m making coffee.”

“I’ll feed him,” Clarke offers, standing up. She’s wearing one of Lexa’s t-shirts (because, as she explained, it seemed like the thing to do) and a pair of gray sweatpants she had pulled from her suitcase where it sat, previously untouched, by the top of the stairs on their way down. “Where is his food?”

“His kibble is in the cupboard to the right of the fridge. He also gets a couple spoonfuls of Greek yogurt on his food. It helps with his, ah, odor.”

“His farts you mean?” Clarke’s eyes twinkle as she walks over to get Titus his kibble.

Laughing, Lexa nods. “Yes. That.”

They are quiet for a moment, each focusing on their respective tasks. 

“There you go, buddy,” Clarke says, putting Titus’s food bowl down on the floor for him. “Bon appetit!”

Titus licks Clarke’s elbow appreciatively as she stands back up and then promptly tears into his food.

Lexa hands Clarke a cup of coffee. Clarke takes a sip. “Mmm,” she sighs, her eyes closing. Then they pop open. “How’d you know I take cream and no sugar?”

“I saw your face when I poured sugar into my coffee at the diner that day. Your nose wrinkled. So I knew you wouldn’t put sugar in yours.”

Clarke stares at her with a half-smile on her face as though she’s somewhere between shocked and awed. “And the cream?”

Lexa shrugs. “You drink Starbucks. I saw you toss out your cup the first day I came to your office. You wouldn’t drink black coffee from Starbucks when you have a perfectly good Keurig machine in the lobby of your office. So I figured whatever you drank was more like a latte or a mocha. So… since I don’t have a fancy espresso machine, cream it is!”

There’s an earnest expression on Clarke’s face that Lexa can’t quite read the meaning of. “What?” She asks.

Clarke shakes her head and her tousled blonde hair sways side to side. “I’m just used to being the only one to pay attention to things.” She takes another sip of coffee. “I’m the investigator - usually I’m the only one who notices details.”

They make their way into the living room and settle on the couch, toes touching in the middle. Titus, having finished his food, follows them in from the kitchen, finds a chew toy and plops down on the rug.

“How’d you get into your line of work, anyway?” Lexa asks. Clarke knows her story, but she doesn’t know Clarke’s.

A faraway look enters Clarke’s eyes and she stares toward the window, silent for several seconds. It seems as though she’s trying to figure out how much to reveal. Finally, she seems to come to a decision and turns back to face Lexa.

“My parents were,  _ are, _ very… ambitious people. They had very high expectations of my brothers and me.” Clarke stares into her cup as though she’s reading tea leaves, even though it’s coffee in her mug, not tea. “My mom is a doctor. She’s still practicing even though she’s old enough to retire. My dad is a retired aerospace engineer.”

“Wow,” Lexa says. “He’s  _ literally _ a rocket scientist.”

Clarke laughs. “Yeah. Well, he was.” Her smile is fond but it fades quickly. “My oldest brother, Jeremy, kind of followed in his footsteps. He’s a chemical engineer at NASA. My next oldest brother, Jack, followed in my mom’s footsteps and is a pediatric oncologist in Massachusetts.”

“Damn,” Lexa murmurs. “That’s got to be a sobering job.”

Clarke nods. “It is, but he loves it.” She taps her fingernail against her mug, making a rhythmic clinking sound. “He’s a great guy. He really is.”

Lexa remembers Clarke’s comment about being close with two of her three brothers. She also remembers how Clarke deflected instantly when the third brother was mentioned.

No sooner does Lexa think that than Clarke’s eyes cloud over.  _ Here we go, _ Lexa thinks.

But Clarke doesn’t speak. Lexa can see that she  _ wants  _ to, but it seems like she doesn’t quite know how to begin conveying whatever it is she’s trying to say.

Lexa decides to prompt her. “And your third brother..?”

A sharp laugh bursts from Clarke’s mouth. “Jayce.”

Lexa waits quietly.

“He didn’t go any of the routes that my parents had hoped for him.” Clarke sighs, meeting Lexa’s eyes. “It’s hard to talk about, kind of.”

“You don’t have to…” Lexa says, but Clarke interrupts her.

“No, it’s okay. It’s probably good for me to talk about it, even though I hate it.” She glances into her mostly empty coffee cup. 

Titus seems to sense Clarke’s unease. He looks up sharply, drops his chew toy and jumps right up onto the couch. 

“Oof!” Clarke exclaims as all four of Titus’s paws make contact with her thighs and midsection. 

“Titus!” Lexa yelps, reaching to pull the boxer off of Clarke, but Titus is having none of it. He arranges his legs and flops right down on Clarke’s lap. He gives Lexa a cheeky look and lays his head on his paws, sighing contentedly.

Lexa starts to apologize for Titus but Clarke laughs and fondly rubs Titus’s neck. “He’s fine.” She smiles at Lexa. “He just wants to give me moral support while I talk about this shit.”

“Apparently,” Lexa says, dubiously eyeing her dog. “Anyway, go on, if you want to. I’m listening.”

“My parents wanted Jayce to either go to MIT like my dad did, Stanford like Jeremy did or Yale like my mom did and Jack was at the time. But he didn’t want to do any of those things.”

“Mmm,” Lexa hums. “So there was tension there.”

Clarke laughs sharply. “You could say that.”

“So what did he end up doing?”

“A lot of drugs,” Clarke answers dryly. “And he dropped out of community college.” She shakes her head. “My parents were furious. I can still hear them yelling at him,  _ ‘We’ve given you every opportunity to succeed and you’re just throwing it all away!’ ‘What are you doing with your life?!’ _ ”

Lexa rubs her foot against Clarke’s calf supportively. “How old were you at that time?”

“Thirteen,” Clarke says and, no doubt seeing the gears turning in Lexa’s mind, she adds, “I was an unplanned surprise.”

“Ah,” Lexa says. What else can she say?

Clarke lets out a breath. “So… instead of pressuring Jayce to do anything, my parents turned all that pressure onto me.”

_ Oh. _ Lexa understands immediately the implications of that. “That must have been heavy for you.”

Clarke nods solemnly. “It was. It still is.” She sighs. “I didn’t necessarily want to go into this line of work. But the idea of me working for a government agency was  _ very _ exciting for my parents. And once that was established, there was really no question in their minds that I would rise within my job.”

“So being a lead investigator wasn’t what you had in mind since you were a child?”

Clarke laughs. “Hell no!” She considers the carpet. “I wanted to be an art teacher.”

Lexa has to blink several times before her brain can assimilate the words that just came out of Clarke’s mouth. “An  _ art teacher?” _ That is just so far away from what Clarke does now that it’s almost impossible to conjure up an image of her doing that instead.

“Yeah, for elementary school kids.” She laughs softly, almost sheepishly. “But of course that would never fly.”

Anger blooms in Lexa’s chest. In what universe do parents think it’s the right thing to squash their children’s dreams in the name of prestige? She fully understands that if Clarke had been an elementary school art teacher, she would not have been the lead investigator on  _ her _ airplane crash and therefore Lexa wouldn’t have met her. Or at least not in the way that she did. But damnit, Clarke deserves happiness, even if that didn’t involve Lexa.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’d make a great art teacher.”

“Yeah?” Clarke smiles at Lexa. “Thanks.”

Lexa thinks of something. “Why do all your brothers’ names start with J and yours --”

“--Is Clarke?” She rolls her eyes. “It’s my mother’s maiden name. My dad’s name is Jake and he wanted all the boys to have J names, but my mom insisted she get to name me.”

“Well, I think it suits you.”

“Thank you. I used to hate it when I was a kid but now it’s kind of grown on me.”

Lexa drinks the last few drops of her coffee. “More coffee?” She asks, standing up.

“Please.” Clarke holds out her cup. Titus sniffs it on its way by.

Heading to the kitchen, Lexa calls, “Well, this conversation has given me a good idea of what we should do today.”

“Oh yeah?” Clarke calls back. “What’s that?”

“You’ll see!”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Salt & Straw is real. Yes, they actually have those flavors. No, I have not tried them. LOL!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty. So. For those of you who are here for the nitty-gritty airplane stuff (I mean... are any of you here for that? LOL) that's coming back soon. This chapter doesn't have much of anything really related to airplanes. For those of you who are here for the interpersonal relations (not just smut- get ya head out the gutter haha) then this chapter is right up your alley. Little bitta angst, little bitta fluff, little bitta foreshadowing. Enjoy.

**October 8**

**10:15:22**

“What is this place?” Clarke is staring in delight at the restaurant they’ve just walked into. 

The tables all have giant, flat griddles in the middle of them. Kind of like a Japanese Hibachi restaurant except that, in this restaurant, it’s the  _ customers _ who do the cooking. 

“Slappy Cakes,” Lexa says, laughing joyfully at the expression on Clarke’s face. “It’s a make-your-own-pancake joint! The pancake batter comes in these little bottles with fine tips so you can make designs in your pancakes if you want to.”

“Pancake art!” Clarke exclaims. “Now I see why my dream career prompted you to think of this.”

Lexa says nothing, just leans in and plants a kiss on Clarke’s cheek just as the hostess walks up and seats them. She explains how the griddle works and shows them where the pancake flipping utensils are.

“Okay, first things first,” Clarke says, taking one of the bottles of pancake batter and drawing a heart-shape on the griddle. She fills it in quickly and waits several seconds. Then she draws a circle around the outside of it, and several consecutive circles inside until the whole pancake is filled in. When she flips it over a minute later, it looks like a heart inside a target shape.

“Wow!” Lexa says. “You’re a natural.”

Clarke flaps her hand. “I’ve watched YouTube videos.” She hands a bottle of batter to Lexa. “Okay, your turn!”

“I have no idea what I’m doing. You’re the artist, not me!”

“Okay. Pancake art, 101. The first batter you put on is going to be the darkest because it will be on the griddle the longest,” Clarke explains. She takes her bottle and makes two small circles on the griddle. “You put it on there and wait a few seconds. Then the stuff that you want to be medium-colored goes on next.”

Clarke adds some squiggly lines in various places around the two dots she made first. Lexa has no idea what she’s making, but she watches intently.

“Then, lastly, the parts you want to be the lightest. They’ll be light because they cook for the least amount of time. Get it?” Clarke adds a bunch more dots, lines and squiggles and finally makes a big, blob-like shape around the whole outside. “Then you let it cook through and flip it.”

When she flips the pancake over, Lexa stares in awe. It’s a spot-on image of her own face.

“That’s me!” Lexa cackles. “You made a pancake of me!”

“Sure did!” Clarke giggles, using the spatula to scoop the pancake off the griddle and slide it onto Lexa’s plate.

“I can’t eat me,” Lexa protests. 

“I can,” Clarke quips, her eyes sparkling.

Lexa cracks up. “You did! Repeatedly.”

“And I plan to do it again before I have to leave later.”

The thought of Clarke leaving makes Lexa’s heart sink. Having Clarke here over the weekend has been incredibly therapeutic. Lexa has hardly had any anxiety or flashbacks the entire time. Even just the idea of Clarke leaving has Lexa feeling uncertain and anxious. She tries to freeze the smile on her face so as not to ruin their morning. However, Clarke notices this and picks up Lexa’s hand, giving it a squeeze and then kissing her knuckles.

“Come on,” she says, handing Lexa the bottle of batter. “Let’s see what you got!”

  
  


**18:18:51**

An awful, bone-piercing silence had settled over the house as soon as the door closed behind Clarke. Even Titus has seemed to notice. He moped around on the couch, only getting up when Lexa offered him a string-cheese - his favorite treat. 

“I know, buddy,” Lexa sighs. “I miss her already, too.”

Titus stretches out on the rug, chomping on his cheese, strings of it hanging from his jowls.

Lexa tries to settle in to watch a movie but nothing can hold her attention. She picks up her phone, checking her email, Facebook and Instagram. Nothing interesting there either.

Just then, a text appears on the screen. It’s from Gustus, her pilot friend she met and bonded with over their shared love of spaghetti and meatballs.

  1. **You got time for a chat?**



Lexa responds in the affirmative and within a minute, her phone is chiming, indicating that Gustus wants to FaceTime.

When Lexa swipes to accept, Gustus’s giant face appears on the screen.

“Dude!” He hollers at her through the phone. “Your crash-landing! I heard about it when it happened but I haven’t had time to call you!”

Lexa smiles wanly. “Yeah, that was... an experience.”

“No sh- you don’t say!” Gustus booms. In the background, Lexa can hear Juliette, Gustus’s four-year-old daughter shrieking and laughing at something. “Shh, Jules! I’m on the phone, okay baby girl?”

“How the heck are you, Gus,” Lexa asks, propping the phone against an empty coffee cup on the end-table so she doesn’t have to hold the phone up. 

“Good, good,” Gustus answers. “Same stuff, different day. I just got back from a split shift in the south and Mexico. I had a two-day layover in Cabo. Worked on my tan, can you tell?”

Lexa laughs. “Gustus, you’re always tan.”

“Ah, what can I say? Blame it on my mother and her Hungarian ancestors.” He turns the phone quickly to say something to Juliette off screen. “Sorry, JuJu is just going to bed. Juliette, come say good night to Lexa!”

Juliette’s cherubic face, framed by dark brown ringlets to match her father’s, fills the screen. “Good night Wexa!” 

“Good night, sweetie,” Lexa smiles. “Sweet dreams!”

“Hello!” Gustus’s wife, Pearl, pops her head into frame. “Nice to see you for a quick second!”

“You too,” Lexa replies.

Gustus sits down on the sofa, the background noise gone. “So how are you  _ really?” _ He asks, dark brown eyes boring into her across the miles. “You’ve been pretty hush-hush about the whole thing. No interviews or anything.”

Lexa considers his question, her lips twisting as she thinks. “I’m okayish,” she finally says. “I’m actually doing a little better now.”

“That’s good,” Gustus says, his eyes turning soft. “Do you know what happened? I read the memo but there wasn’t anything solid from the NTSB at that point so it was just kind of the bare bones.”

“Yeah, it was ice. It’s a long story but the short version is that ice built up in the fuel tanks and then clogged the fuel lines.”

Gustus furrows his bushy brows as he tries to grasp what Lexa is saying. “But… why wouldn’t that happen  _ all _ the time then? We fly through icy conditions regularly. Wouldn’t this happen more often?”

Lexa tilts her head one way then the other. “Ehh… no. Think of it as just the perfect combination of conditions. A one in a million chance.”

“Jesus, Lexa, you should buy a lottery ticket!” Gustus guffaws, shaking his head.

Lexa laughs, tilting her head back. “I think that’s the  _ opposite _ kind of luck I need to win the lottery.” She sighs, smiling. “But thanks anyway.”

“So what else is new?” Gustus asks.

Titus, having long since finished his string-cheese, groans dramatically, flopping over onto his back.

“What the hell was that!”

“Oh, just Titus, being his theatrical self.” She nudges the dog with her foot. “He’s upset because we had company and she just left.”

Of course Gustus picks up on that. “ _ She?” _ He leers. “Who is this  _ she _ and how did you meet her?”

Raising an eyebrow, Lexa jokes, “First of all, how is this any of your business, and second of all, what makes you think she was  _ that _ kind of company?”

“It’s my business because you’re my friend and as for the second part, you are mopey too! You wouldn’t mope after just  _ anybody _ left.” He stares at her with mock accusation. “You like your space.”

She can’t deny he’s right about that. Suddenly she closes her eyes and groans. “Gus, you’re going to  _ freak _ .”

“Try me.”

Lexa stares at him for a moment, challenging him, then takes a deep breath. “Okay. Her name is Clarke Griffin. She’s amazing, beautiful, outrageously smart, funny, fun, caring and… she’s the lead NTSB investigator of my airplane accident.”

Gustus is silent for several seconds, his face void of expression as Lexa’s word sink in. Then he tips his head back and laughs, a booming sound so loud and effervescent that Lexa fears it will wake his daughter up. He continues to roar with laughter for almost an entire minute. Finally, his laughter recedes to softer chuckles. He swipes at his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“God almighty, Lexa,” Gustus chortles. “I have to hand it to you! Of all the people for you to fall for…”

“I know, I know, stop laughing,” Lexa grouches. “I couldn’t help it! She’s just…”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Gustus interrupts. “When you know, you know.”

They’re both quiet for a minute, then a troubled look passes over Gustus’s face. “Lexa, I’m happy you found someone who makes you light up like that. But… isn’t this a conflict of interest?”

Lexa heaves a sigh. “Probably. Definitely.” She picks at the edge of one of the throw pillows. “But Clarke doesn’t seem to think it’s an issue.”

“Hoo boy,” Gustus exhales. “Well, just be careful, okay? I wouldn’t want this to come back and bite you in the ass.

_ Famous last words, _ Lexa thinks, dubiously. All she can do is hope that Clarke is right and they aren’t making a colossal mistake that could potentially end both their careers.

  
  


**October 11**

**13:53:42**

It’s almost one o’clock and, after a morning of housework, lightbulb-changing, errands and general productivity, Lexa is about to consider making lunch for herself. She’s trying to decide between veggies with hummus or a good, old-fashioned peanut butter and jelly sandwich when there’s a knock on the door. It surprises Lexa because she’s not expecting anyone. Titus, who had been sleeping curled up in a ball on the couch, bounds to the front window, braces his paws on the windowsill and looks out. Suddenly, his stumpy tail starts wagging furiously, along with the whole back half of his body.

“Who is it, buddy?” Lexa asks her dog, as she walks to the front door. “Who’s at the door? Sit,” she tells him as she passes. “Stay.” 

She could go to the window and look out, but Lexa suspects it's a solicitor or something. She really needs to remember to get a No Soliciting sign to put by the door.

The shock of seeing that it’s not a solicitor but  _ Clarke _ at the door reverberates through Lexa’s very bones. It takes her several seconds to process what she’s seeing; to believe that what she’s seeing is  _ real. _ But it is. Clarke stands there, wearing skinny jeans, Nike slides with socks and an oversized black hooded sweatshirt. Her hair is piled messily on top of her head and she’s wearing her glasses.

“Clarke!” Lexa exclaims, her eyes still no doubt bugging out. “I didn’t -- You -- Why are --” 

Clarke starts laughing. “Sorry to drop in on you unannounced. I was in phone meetings the entire drive down here so I never had a chance to call or text you.”

Lexa backs up and lets Clarke into the house. “I’m happy to see you. But… why  _ are _ you here?”

“We’re done in Seattle and I was supposed to be on a red-eye out of Sea-Tac back to DC tonight, but I got it switched to Portland instead so I could spend today with you.” She glances around quickly. “If you’re not busy, that is.”

“I’m not,” Lexa assures her. 

They are both momentarily distracted by Titus who has apparently reached the end of his patience but is still sitting as Lexa had commanded him to. He whines pathetically, nearly vibrating with eagerness.

“Oh, Titus, you big old goof, come here,” Clarke drops to her knees and holds her arms out. Titus leaps the four feet of space between them and knocks Clarke completely over onto her butt. The boxer wriggles all around as Clarke laughs, flopping his ears and pinching his cheeks  _ (if they’re even called cheeks on a dog _ , Lexa muses). After a minute, Clarke stands up.

“It’s a good thing I wasn’t wearing any makeup,” she says. “Titus would have just licked it all off and I’d have to reapply.”

Lexa chuckles. “You don’t need makeup, Clarke. You’re beautiful.” Lexa ignores the gentle eye-roll from Clarke. “And Titus is just happy to see you. As am I.” She draws Clarke in and kisses her softly. “I’m glad you came.”

  
  


**18:40:11**

After a very enthusiastic reconvention in the bedroom, Lexa and Clarke are taking a food break - much needed, as Lexa had never gotten around to making lunch after Clarke appeared at the door. Lexa made spaghetti and Clarke watched, keeping the noodles from boiling over and adding salt to the water when Lexa forgot it.

Titus is happily scarfing down plain noodles and steamed broccoli along with his kibble, and Clarke and Lexa are seated in the dining area, playing footsie with each other under the tabletop.

Lexa twirls some spaghetti around her fork. “Clarke,” she begins, unsure of how to tactfully convey what she wants to say. “Do we… are we… what… I mean, is--”

Clarke’s eyebrows raise higher with each of Lexa’s attempts to start the sentence. Finally she laughs. “Pop the clutch, Junior.”

Lexa scowls, smiling. “I’m trying!” 

“Well, spit it out already!” Clarke teases, her eyes sparkling. Then she grows more serious. “You can ask me anything.”

Lexa takes a deep breath. She feels as though asking any difficult questions has the potential to mess up her relationship with Clarke. She so enjoys the way she feels when they’re together that she wonders if the bliss of ignorance isn’t better than knowing what is coming.

“Are we dating?” Lexa finally blurts out. She cringes.  _ God, I sound like a middle schooler asking my crush this question after one slow dance at a school party. _ She hurries on. “Because I’d really like to be. If we’re not already, I mean. But I also don’t want you to feel pressured, because, well, I really like you and--”

Lexa interrupts herself because the look on Clarke’s face is very confusing to her. She looks as though she’s seen the cutest puppy in the world. Her eyebrows are drawn together and her lower lip is almost quivering. Lexa glances backward over her shoulder briefly to make sure that Titus isn’t right behind her doing something particularly endearing. Seeing that he is still off to the left, noisily devouring his dinner, Lexa turns back to face Clarke.

“...What?” She asks, unsure of the reason for the look on Clarke’s face.

Clarke shakes her head, her expression melting into a smile. “Nothing I…” she shakes her head again. “You’re just really,  _ really _ sweet. And fucking adorable.”

Lexa blushes. “I, um… thank you.” She lays her fork down, still loaded with spaghetti. “But…”

“To answer your question,” Clarke says, “I would like for us to be dating. So yes, we are dating.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Lexa leans back slightly in her chair. “That… that’s good.”

A moment passes and Lexa gathers up her courage.

“But.. are we putting our careers in danger?”

Clarke stops, fork halfway to her mouth, spaghetti noodles dangling in mid-air. She returns the fork to the plate and tilts her head, regarding Lexa with an open expression. She blinks a few times and says, “Well, quite honestly, maybe.”

Lexa’s heart sinks.

“But,” Clarke says, “if it comes down to it, me losing my career wouldn’t be the end of the world. And if worst comes to worst, I’ll quit.”

Silence stretches between them as Lexa stares at Clarke. She heard the words that Clarke said but it takes many seconds for the entirety of the implications of those words to make their way into her brain.

“You… would quit your  _ job _ … for me…” Lexa says the sentence slowly, still trying to absorb it even as the words come out of her mouth. 

“Mm-hmm,” Clarke hums in ascent, chewing her food. She says it so casually, like it’s not her entire career and livelihood she’s talking about giving up.

“No,” Lexa says. She lays her fork down and pushes her plate away, suddenly not hungry anymore. “I can’t do that.”

Clarke looks confused and lays her fork down as well. “What do you mean you can’t do that? Can’t do what?”

Now  _ Lexa _ is confused. “What do  _ you _ mean I can’t do what?” Her voice is rising. “I can’t do..  _ this!” _ She gestures to the two of them. “I can’t be with you if it means you’re going to have to potentially give up your  _ career, _ Clarke!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Clarke holds her hands up, waving them in the air. “Just hold on a second!”

Lexa’s breathing is coming in ragged pants and she can’t stop. “No!” She snarls. “I refuse to let you do that.”

Clarke’s expression morphs from one of surprise to one of vague annoyance. It’s not a look Lexa has ever seen directed at her before. 

“If you’ll just calm down for a minute, we can discuss this,” Clarke says evenly. She’s leaning back in her chair a little bit, her hands flat on the table. One eyebrow is raised. Lexa recognizes this warning sign from all the times she’s witnessed Clarke talking to Marcus Kane - Clarke is getting irritated.

But Lexa is too far gone. Her own life is already completely changed by this airplane crash; Clarke’s life doesn’t need to completely change also. Lexa feels as though she’s drowning in responsibility - responsibility for the passengers on 387, the airplane, Bellamy. Now she would be responsible for the demise of Clarke’s career.

_ It’s too much, _ she thinks.

“I - I have to… I…” Lexa’s vision is starting to narrow.

Clarke is up and out of her chair in an instant. Her voice sounds very far away. “Lexa?”

“I have to get out,” Lexa hears herself mumble. 

Part of her brain is aware that she’s outside. Running. Part of her notices the burning in her lungs, the aching in her legs. But such a large percentage of her awareness is taken up by the visceral need to get away from whatever was causing her such stress that she’s not even completely aware of where she is in space or time until she runs into someone - literally.

The large man she has collided with remains standing while Lexa flies back at least four or five feet, landing on her butt on the sidewalk.

“Are you okay?” The man asks, extending a hand to help Lexa up. “I tried to avoid you but… you were kind of running with your eyes half closed.”

Panting heavily, Lexa looks around. “H - how… how did I get here?” She whispers. 

She’s near the intersection of Second Street and Watson Avenue. That’s almost two miles from her house.

“Um,” says the man, looking perplexed, “I’m guessing you ran?” He leans further down, hand still extended. “Hey, did you, uh, hit your head or something? Should I call 911?”

“No,” Lexa almost shouts. Then softer, “No, I’m okay. I didn’t hit my head. I was just… uh… having kind of a panic attack.” She accepts his hand and lets him haul her to her feet. She feels in her pockets for her phone, but comes up empty. She must not have grabbed it in her haste to get out the door.

“Do you want to call someone?” The man asks, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Here, what’s the number? I’ll dial it. Your hands are shaking.”

They are. Lexa shoves them in her pockets. She gives him Anya’s phone number, accepts the phone from him and presses it to her ear.

It rings seven times and goes to voicemail.

“She - my sister - probably didn’t pick up because it’s a number she doesn’t recognize,” Lexa says. “Can I send her a text from your phone? Then she’ll answer.” 

When the kind stranger nods, Lexa taps a message out to Anya in the text messaging app. Within seconds, the phone rings in Lexa’s hand.

“ _ Lexa?!” _ Anya’s voice is strident. 

“It’s me,” Lexa says, her voice breaking. “I - I don’t have my phone.”

“Where are you?” Anya demands. “What’s going on?”

Lexa squeezes her eyes closed. “I’m at Watson and Second. I… can you just come pick me up?”

Anya is silent for a second. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.  _ Don’t move.” _ The line goes dead.

Lexa hands the phone back to the man. “Thank you,” she almost whispers. “I… I really appreciate your help.”

The man smiles kindly. “I don’t know who you are or what you’re going through, but whatever it is, it’s going to be okay.” He pockets his phone. “Do you want me to stay with you while you wait for your sister? She  _ is _ coming, isn’t she?”

Lexa nods. “She’s coming.” She feels tears stinging her eyes. “You don’t have to stay. I’ll be okay.”

The man doesn’t look convinced.

“I… had a fight with my girlfriend. Kind of.”

“You kind of had a fight?”

Lexa furrows her brows. “Yeah. I kind of had a fight with my maybe-girlfriend.”

The man shakes his head. “That’s confusing.”

Lexa sighs. “I know. She wants to give up her career so we can be together.” Lexa leans against the wall of the brick building behind her. The man leans against the wall beside her.

“That doesn’t sound like something to fight over.”

Shaking her head, Lexa stares at the sidewalk. “I can’t be responsible for that. I have so much responsibility as it is.”

“Like what?”

Lexa stares at him, incredulous, for a second before she remembers that this guy has no idea who she is or what she does for a living. 

“I’m an airline pilot.” Then she pinches the bridge of her nose. “Well, I  _ was. _ I don’t know if I can go back to it now.”

The man regards her with a soft expression. “Why not?”

Lexa considers whether to tell him the story or not. Ultimately she decides that since she will likely never see this guy again, it doesn’t matter. “You know the crash in Alaska? Polaris Air?”

“The one from last month? Yeah. Everyone survived. That pilot is totally a hero.”

That stops Lexa for a good several seconds.  _ A hero? _ She thinks. Somehow her mind cannot apply that term to herself. 

“Uh, well… yeah, anyway,” she mumbles, now unsure of how to proceed. Finally she decides to just plow ahead. “Well, that pilot was me.  _ Is _ me. I landed that plane.” She ignores the widening of the man’s eyes and hurries on. “It really fucked me up. But then I kind of… fell in love.”

The man looks like he’s going to say something about her being the pilot of the crash, but then seems to change his mind. “Okay,” he says. “So you fell in love. This is a good thing, right? How does this all culminate in you running down Watson Ave in the dark, having a panic attack?”

“I fell in love with the lead investigator of my own airplane crash.”

The man’s mouth drops open then snaps shut. “Oh.” Then a second later, “Does she love you back?”

A parade of images of Clarke’s face passes through Lexa’s mind. Clarke smiling at her. Clarke listening to her. Clarke laughing as Titus smothered her with kisses. 

“I think so.”

“Does she love her job?”

Lexa shrugs. “I think she does. At least aspects of it.”

The man smiles gently. “Then she must really value you to be willing to give it up.”

Lexa hasn’t thought about it that way.

“Imagine loving someone that much,” the man says.

“I can imagine it,” Lexa responds immediately. “I would give up my career for her in a second.”

The man says nothing, just looks at Lexa.

Suddenly she understands.

The words in her mind come out of the man’s mouth. “ _ That’s _ how much she loves you back.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me a comment! Tell me what YOU think is going to happen next!!! :D :D
> 
> Thank you Underthecovers - you're one of my very favorite humans. xo.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well.. once again, the story took a turn I was not expecting. Ladies and gentleman.... OCTAVIA! 
> 
> I'm sorry this chapter took a bit to get out. I've been running around like a headless chook (as Underthecovers would say)!
> 
> Speaking of.. thank you Underthecovers. As always. You not only read my stuff and tell me if it's good, but you keep me company when I'm up at 2am for no good reason! If that's not true friendship then I don't know what is. :)
> 
> p.s. See end of chapter for a photo of Titus! (Actually my dog, Frank.)

**October 11**

**19:32:42**

Anya had shown up in a blaze of concern and squealing tires. She had popped open the locks on the car door and given Lexa a pointed look, but had said nothing. Lexa had thanked the kind stranger for his help and then gotten in Anya’s car. Anya had taken off so fast that Lexa had been pressed back into her seat, and that had reminded her of taking off in an airplane. The thought had been so unexpected and triggering that it had nearly sent her spiraling into another panic episode but fortunately Anya was able to quell it before it had really had a chance to begin.

Now they are speeding down Watson Avenue at a rate most alarming.

“What did Clarke say to you?” Anya almost snarls and Lexa realizes that Anya thinks this is Clarke’s fault.

“N-nothing,” she stutters. “Well, she didn’t do anything wrong, I mean.”

Anya gives her a look that says, _I obviously don’t believe you._ “She did nothing wrong but you ended up in the dark on the sidewalk without your phone at the mercy of a total stranger?” Anya’s voice ratchets up at the end of the sentence. “He could have _raped_ you, Lex! What the hell! Why didn’t you at least ask a lady for help?”

Lexa stares at her sister for a second. She understands, on some level, that Anya is upset because she was worried for Lexa’s safety and the what-might-have-beens. But for whatever reason, Anya’s irritation rubs Lexa completely the wrong way.

“Look,” Lexa says, her voice controlled which Anya, if she were smart, should heed as a warning. “I crashed an _entire airplane_ a month ago. It was stressful, to say the least. So forgive me if I’m not operating at peak capacity right now, _Anya._ ” The last word comes out as a bite.

Anya’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel. She’s holding the wheel with her hands at the ten-and-two position, a far cry from her usual one hand draped over the wheel position, which tells Lexa she’s extremely tense.

“I get that, _Lexa,_ ” Anya gives as good as she gets. “But you can’t be reckless and take off into the dark because your girlfriend said something mean and then ask some random _guy_ to use his phone--”

Lexa explodes. “That’s not even how it happened!” She whacks the side panel of the car so hard her hand aches. “I didn’t stop to ask him for help! I literally ran _into_ him and he was nice and helped me out. I panicked because Clarke said she would be willing to give up her career to be with me. _Her career, Anya._ Her life as an NTSB investigator. Do you have any idea how guilty I would feel if she did that?”

Anya is fortunately staring at the road, but her jaw is slack.

So Lexa continues. “Her career - her being so damn good at her job - is how I’m going to keep _my_ career. How can I let her trade hers for mine?” To her horror Lexa feels as though she’s going to cry. “It’s not fair to her.”

Anya is still quiet and this is alarming because she’s never speechless for this long. Finally, she speaks. “Okay… that is not what I expected you to say.” She glances over at Lexa. “What did you say?”

The upholstery of the seat is suddenly very interesting to Lexa. She doesn’t meet Anya’s eyes. “I told her no.”

“Excuse me?” 

“I said I couldn’t be responsible for her giving up her career like that.”

Anya closes her eyes and then remembers she’s driving and snaps them open again. She swerves slightly to avoid a pothole in the road. Neither of them say anything until Anya turns into Lexa’s driveway. She shuts off the car and turns to face her sister.

“So let me get this straight. You have a beautiful, smart girl _in your house_ , who probably gives you mind-blowing sex --”

“Anya!”

Anya holds her hand up. “Shush.” She eyes Lexa sternly. “And she tells you that you are important enough to her to _give up her job_ which, mind you, doesn’t necessarily mean that she is _going_ to give up said job, just that she _would_ … and not only do you tell her ‘no’ but you bolt out of the house in a panic and leave her there alone?”

Lexa hangs her head. “She wasn’t alone,” she mumbles feebly. “Titus is here.”

“Oh great!” Anya shouts, her voice full of irony. “That really helps!”

Anya closes her eyes, takes a breath, flares her nostrils and lets it out slowly. She opens her eyes and gives Lexa the epic Anya-glare. “Go inside. Tell her you’re sorry. Make it up to her. Whatever you have to do.”

Lexa moves to get out of the car but Anya grabs her wrist. “I mean it, Lex. Don’t let this one get away.”

“Okay,” Lexa says, getting out of the car. “Thanks for rescuing me, Ahn.”

Anya scoffs. “And for the love of Pete, Lex, do not interrupt me in the middle of Netflix-and-chill ever again!” And with that, she backs out of the driveway and roars off down the street. 

Lexa watches Anya’s tail lights fade in the distance. She takes a deep breath and walks up the front step to her own house, opens the door and steps inside.

“Clarke?” Lexa calls out. The silence that greets her is broken by Titus who bounds down the stairs three at a time. He winds himself around Lexa’s legs, fervently licking her hands. 

“I know, I know, I’m sorry buddy,” Lexa soothes the dog. “Clarke?” She calls again.

The dining area and kitchen are empty. Their plates of spaghetti have been moved to the counter next to the sink - both still mostly full. Lexa jogs up the stairs and checks her bedroom. Cold fear grips her as she realizes Clarke is nowhere to be found. She runs down the stairs again, finds her phone on the kitchen counter and opens it. 

She has one unread text message. It’s from Clarke.

_Hey, I’m really sorry I upset you. That_

_wasn’t my intent_ . _I know you have a lot_

_going on right now and I don’t want to_

_add to your stress. Let me know when_

_you have had a chance to think and we_

_will talk. I’ll see you soon. XO_

Lexa feels panic rising in her throat again. She drops the phone back onto the counter with a clatter and runs to the front window. In the chaos of arriving home in the middle of a lecture from Anya, she had failed to notice the fact that Clarke’s rental car was no longer parked on the road in front of the house.

Clarke is gone.

  
  


**October 13**

**09:11:30**

It’s been thirty-seven hours and forty-one minutes since Lexa got home and found Clarke gone.

And Lexa hasn’t called or texted Clarke.

It’s not because she doesn’t want to talk to her, it’s because she doesn’t know what to say. 

Clarke had scared her; actually, what Clarke had _said_ had scared her. Lexa’s reaction to Clarke’s words had been borne of fear, but not fear of commitment to Clarke - it was fear of costing Clarke something she valued. 

There is nothing Lexa fears more than failure. If Clarke gives up her career because of Lexa, then Lexa will have failed to provide Clarke with a relationship where she can keep her goddamn _job,_ much less find happiness and fulfillment. It’s not exactly failure in the black-and-white sense, but the responsibility would still be on Lexa. At least partially.

But the words of the kind stranger and Anya ring in Lexa’s head.

_Don’t let her go.._

_Imagine loving someone that much…_

Lexa sighs and presses the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. She’s sitting on the couch, having just come back from a run, with Titus licking the dried sweat off her shins. It’s warm and dry outside for October - an Indian summer.

“Titus,” Lexa admonishes, smiling because it tickles a little. “Stop it, buddy. You’re weird.”

The dog looks up at her with gentle brown eyes. He seems to sense her discomfort and hops up semi-gracefully onto the couch beside her. He sits on his butt, tilting his head just a little, looking at her soulfully.

Lexa bursts into tears, throwing her arms around her dog in an extremely uncharacteristic discharge of emotion. That seems to be the norm for her these days.

Titus licks her ear, her cheek and the side of her head, getting hair in his mouth and huffing to expel it. Lexa buries her face in his big, soft, barrel-chest.

“What do I do, Titus?” She almost wails. “What do I say to her?”

At that exact moment, her phone buzzes to life on the coffee table.

**Clarke** , the screen reads.

Lexa wipes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and answers the phone.

  
  


**October 14**

**08:18:08**

It turned out that Clarke had been calling from under her NTSB-investigator hat and not her Lexa’s-maybe-girlfriend hat. She had called to tell Lexa that the report from Seattle had been submitted and was being reviewed by the NTSB and the FAA officials, and that they’d be letting her know within a couple weeks whether they were ready to move on to the final hearing or if there was more information that needed to be collected.

It had been a somewhat awkward conversation; Lexa hadn’t known what to say. She’d thanked Clarke for keeping her posted and then an uneasy silence had descended over the phone.

_“We’ll talk soon, okay?”_ Clarke had said, and Lexa had tried to decide whether she imagined the urgency in Clarke’s voice or not.

_“Yes, we will,”_ Lexa had said as reassuringly as she could, although she wasn’t sure who should be reassuring whom.

Lexa is so confused. Clarke had _just_ been here, hadn’t she? Lexa’s pillow had smelled like her for a whole twenty-four hours after she’d left. It had reminded Lexa of a joke Anya had told once - “Farts are the ghosts of the food we eat.” The scent on her pillow and the long blonde hairs in the shower drain were the ghosts of the relationship that had been growing between Lexa and Clarke.

Is that all that would be left? The ghosts? The memory of a scent on her pillow and hairs in the shower drain? Memories of stolen kisses and rumpled sheets?

It’s after eight in the morning and Lexa is still in bed. Titus is displeased, if his insistent huffing and pawing at the bedcovers is any indication. Rubbing her eyes, Lexa sighs.

“Okay, okay, I’m getting up.”

Titus prances backwards excitedly, watching Lexa as she swings her legs out of bed and stands up.

The two of them trek downstairs - Titus eagerly, Lexa less so. She is dumping kibble into Titus’s bowl when her phone rings on the kitchen counter. 

Lexa grumbles. It feels like her phone rings constantly and it’s never good news. She briefly wonders if it would be acceptable to just throw the phone in the garbage.

Sighing heavily, Lexa looks at the screen.

**F.O. Blake.**

“Hello?” Lexa hits the speakerphone button so she can wash out Titus’s water bowl while she’s talking to Bellamy.

“Hey,” Bellamy’s voice carries a tone of exhaustion that Lexa picks up on immediately. “Did you get a call from the NTSB?”

“Yeah, yesterday morning,” Lexa answers as she scrubs the dog bowl. “Why?”

There’s noise in the background - a thump and a whirring sound.

“Sorry - I’m in the car…” Bellamy curses quietly. “Okay, I’m back. I’m heading to the store. Echo had the baby a week ago and it’s… rough.”

Lexa had completely forgotten about the impending birth of Bellamy’s second child. It had been lost in the chaos. “Congratulations, Bellamy,” Lexa says warmly, meaning it. “What did you name the baby?”

“Aden, A-D-E-N,” Bellamy responds. “It was a tough birth. I wasn’t…” His voice trails off. When he speaks again, his voice is strained. “I wasn’t there for her like I should have been.”

“Bellamy…”

“That’s on me,” Bellamy says bitterly. “I can’t even support my own wife through _childbirth._ Wood - _Lexa -_ she almost _died._ And I was so numb.”

Lexa sets Titus’s now clean and filled water bowl back down. “Look,” she says. “You’ve got to be gentler with yourself. All you can do is the best you can do, Bellamy. No one can ask more of you than the best you can do.”

Bellamy gives a quiet chuckle. “That reminds me of an episode of The Big Bang Theory. Sheldon bought Chinese food or something for everyone and Penny told him she’d pay him back as soon as she could, and he goes ‘of course you will; it’s impossible for you to pay me back sooner than you can.’”

“Right,” Lexa laughs too. “I remember that episode. But that’s the same idea. It’s impossible for you to give more than you have.”

“Echo doesn’t understand that. She keeps telling me how _she’s_ the one dealing with all this crap right now. Hormones, soreness, milk coming in, all that. That I had my turn to be sad and traumatized but she needs me to ‘snap out of it’ and be there for her now.”

Lexa is quiet, waiting.

Bellamy clicks his tongue in displeasure. “As though she was ‘there for me’ when we crashed. She was so busy whining about superficial shit that we’d go days without even mentioning the crash. She never asked me how I was doing, how I was dealing with it. Still doesn’t.”

“That’s not okay,” Lexa murmurs. “She never validated you.”

Bellamy laughs a dry, humorless laugh. “No. The only one who ever validated me was you.”

Lexa’s heart aches. “I’m glad I could do that for you.”

A long sigh comes through the phone. “So it looks like we’ll be back in DC before the end of the year, huh?”

“Probably.”

“What do you think they’ll say?”

Lexa pours herself a cup of coffee. “We’ll know when they say it.”

“That’s a cop out answer if ever I heard one.”

“Sorry,” Lexa says, laughing. “How am I supposed to know what they’ll say?”

In the background of the call, Lexa can hear Bellamy turn off the engine and shut the door. “Aren’t you sleeping with the lead investigator?”

The directness of the question catches Lexa so off guard that she nearly spits her coffee all over the kitchen. “Jesus Christ, Bellamy,” she chokes. “Don’t say it like that! You make it sound like I’m just doing it because I want her to make the report favorable to us.”

“I’m not,” Bellamy insists. “But it might look that way to some people.”

Lexa hadn’t considered that. She chews her lip, thinking about it. 

Titus finishes his kibble and looks around expectantly, as though more will materialize somewhere in the kitchen. Finding none, he lopes off toward the dog door, picking up his favorite tennis ball on the way.

Lexa had known that hers and Clarke’s careers could potentially be in danger from their relationship. She hadn’t really thought past the basic fact that it was against the rules. It had never occurred to her that people might look at the relationship between her and Clarke as being sneaky or insidious in some way.

“Well, anyway,” Lexa says, shaking her head to rid herself of the train of thought. She can think about that later when she’s not on the phone with Bellamy. “I’m not sure I’m ‘sleeping with her,’ as you so _amusingly_ called it, anymore.”

“Uh oh, trouble in paradise?”

Lexa rolls her eyes. “For God’s sake, Bellamy. I’m not going to talk to _you_ about relationship problems. You have enough to deal with.”

A sigh comes through the phone. “I just… wish we could get this hearing over with. You know? The final hearing. And have them bang their gavel or whatever and say it wasn’t our fault. And everything can go back to normal.”

Titus is digging a hole in the dirt in the backyard. Lexa stands at the kitchen window, watching him, idly sipping her coffee.

“ _Will_ things go back to normal, though?” She asks. “Will anything ever really be ‘normal’ again?”

“I don’t know,” Bellamy answers quietly. “But at least the world will know that _we_ didn’t crash that airplane.”

  
  


**October 20**

**17:18:44**

Lexa knows she needs to call Clarke. It’s been a week since they’ve spoken. A few text messages have been exchanged but they’ve been short and awkward and didn’t really touch the issues at hand.

Anya is over. They’ve just returned from buying more kibble for Titus at Target and they’re just starting to discuss what to order for dinner when a knock sounds on the door.

“You expecting someone?” Anya asks as Lexa moves across the living room toward the front door.

“Nope.”

Standing on the doorstep is a thin girl with long, dark hair, probably not any older than nineteen or twenty. She’s wearing black, skin-tight leggings and a long sleeved baggy T-shirt. She has a pretty face and intense, gray-blue eyes.

“Whoa…” Breathes the stranger. “You _are_ pretty!”

Lexa furrows her brows. “Um…”

“Sorry, hi.” The girl smiles a shy, tentative smile. She holds her hand out awkwardly. “I’m, uh, Octavia. And you’re Captain Wood, right?”

Not knowing what else to do, Lexa shakes the girl’s outstretched hand. There’s no one behind her so Lexa doesn’t think she’s a news reporter or anything. “Yes… I am…” Who the heck is this girl?

“I’m doing a report for school about, like, avionics and how they’ve improved or not improved safety in aviation?” For some reason this comes out like a question, inflected up at the end even though there really is no question in that sentence at all. “And I was wondering if I could, like, interview you?”

Now _that’s_ a question.

“Um, sure, but -”

“How’d you find this address?” Anya has come up behind Lexa and is staring accusatorily at Octavia over Lexa’s left shoulder. 

“It’s listed…?” Octavia shifts uncomfortably under Anya’s patented glare. “Digital White Pages.”

Anya turns to Lexa. “Really?” She hisses. “Honestly, Lex, you might as well invite the weirdos to your door, being listed online!”

Lexa raises an eyebrow at Anya. This is not the time for a lecture.

“So…?” Octavia asks, looking between Lexa and Anya. 

For the first time Lexa takes note of the backpack slung over Octavia’s bony shoulder. She looks every bit the typical high-schooler. Nothing is setting off warning bells in Lexa’s mind, and she’s usually a pretty good judge of character.

“Come on in,” Lexa says, ignoring Anya’s dramatic scoff and stepping back to allow the young girl through the doorway.

\---

Seated criss-cross-applesauce on the sofa with Titus pressed up against her leg, Octavia pulls a black and white composition notebook, the bound kind, and a stubby pencil out of her backpack. She flips to a clean page and then looks at Lexa where she is seated in the recliner. Anya is in the kitchen “doing dishes” although Lexa knows she is wary of the young girl and is most definitely listening in.

“So what class is this report for?” Lexa asks. She has to admit she admires Octavia’s tenacity. She doesn’t know many teenagers who would be brave enough to knock on a total stranger’s door and ask for an interview face-to-face.

“Industrial Sciences,” Octavia answers, tapping the eraser end of the pencil against the paper.

“I’ve never heard of that subject,” Lexa muses. “What grade did you say you’re in?”

“I didn’t,” Octavia smiles cheekily. “I’m a senior, but this is for a college class. I’m taking college classes for credit online while going to regular school.” She tilts her head. “It’s cool ‘cause that way I’ll have a head start when I get to college for real next year. But right now I’m at Joliet Junior College.”

Something about that statement tugs at Lexa’s memory, but she can’t quite grab it. She feels like she’s heard that name before. Pushing the nagging thought aside, a smile spreads over Lexa’s face. She had underestimated Octavia, apparently. “What college are you going to next year?”

“Central Washington University, but only if I can get, like, a scholarship or something.” A dark expression passes quickly over Octavia’s face. “They have a good aviation program.”

Lexa’s eyebrows shoot up. “You want to be a pilot?”

Octavia’s blue-gray eyes meet Lexa’s own green ones. “More than anything.” She shakes her head and looks down at her empty page. “Anyway. Can we start?”

“Sure.”

“What made you want to get into flying?”

Suddenly, Lexa is transported back in time. To a diner. Across from Clarke, who was eating chocolate chip pancakes and drinking Coke at ten o’clock in the morning. Clarke, who had asked her the same question.

Lexa shakes the memory free. “Well, I was in the Air Force. I flew fighter jets, so it seemed like a natural progression to move to commercial aviation.”

Octavia leans forward. “But tell me why you wanted to fly in the first place. Why did you want to join the Air Force and fly fighter jets?”

This stops Lexa short. She doesn’t really know what piqued her interest in airplanes. 

“I… don’t know, actually,” Lexa considered the wall behind Octavia’s head. “I just started liking planes one day.”

One of Octavia’s perfectly shaped eyebrows rises. “Really?” She doesn’t sound convinced. “You just woke up and liked airplanes one day?”

“Kind of,” Lexa admits. “I’m not really sure how it happened. I remember seeing jets flying low over the house. They made this really loud roaring sound. I felt that roar all the way down in my soul, it seemed like. I got chills.” 

In her mind, she can still see the stark blue of the sky and the muted gray of the military jets as they flew, one just behind and to the right of the other, over the residential area of the city. She remembers staring up at them in awe - she must have been about eleven or twelve.

“How old were you?” Octavia asks, as if reading her mind.

“Eleven, maybe twelve,” She answers. “It was summertime, I think, but I can’t remember what year.”

“And so from then on you knew you wanted to fly planes?”

“Not really, I just knew I was interested in flying at that point. I didn’t really think about it beyond that until I was in high school. We had an assembly where a bunch of recruiters from the various military branches came and talked to us. I kind of had an epiphany, like, ‘oh, planes, job, Air Force!’” 

Lexa holds up one finger on one hand, one finger on the other hand, and slaps them together, then holding up two fingers on one hand, indicating _one plus one equals two._

“What was it like the first time you flew?” Octavia’s eyes are wide and she’s leaning forward, as if hanging on Lexa’s every word.

“It was…” Lexa closes her eyes, remembering. She can still see the light, piston-powered aircraft, shining bright red and white in the sunshine. She can remember the feeling of the control column under her fingertips, the sensation of the plane accelerating, all the raw power she held in her hands. The freedom of the open sky. She opens her eyes. “Magical.”

“Tell me about it,” Octavia begs, her pencil hanging limply from her fingers, the report long forgotten.

Lexa smiles and tucks her legs up underneath her. She feels like a teenage girl at a sleepover, talking to a friend about some cool thing that happened at the mall that week.

“Well,” Lexa begins. “It was a Cirrus SR20, this cute little red and white thing with a prop in the front. It was like the size of an SUV. A _flying_ SUV. It could seat four, but it was just me and my flight instructor. It was light and agile. So fun to fly.” The memory makes Lexa’s insides feel like warm goo. “We took it on the runway and I released the brake and we just… _went._ Like, the airplane didn’t even _want_ to be on the ground. It just wanted to fly.”

“Wow…” Octavia says wistfully. “Like a bird.”

“Yeah, like a bird. Or like a racehorse that just wants to get out on the track and run.” Lexa chuckles. “It practically jumped into the air.”

“Were you scared?”

“No,” Lexa answers immediately. “I was _home._ ”

  
  


**20:02:32**

An empty pizza box sits on the coffee table and Octavia has two whole pages of notes. Anya is laying on the living room floor on her back, with Titus stretched out on top of her, snoring away. 

“Well, it’s getting late,” Octavia says, flipping her composition notebook closed and unfolding her lanky legs from beneath her. Her gangly build reminds Lexa of Titus when he was a juvenile puppy - all limbs and skinny. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

“I hope I was able to give you enough material for your report.” Lexa stands up at the same time Octavia does.

A pained look crosses Octavia’s pretty features, but disappears as quickly as it came. “You did.”

The two of them shuffle toward the door.

“Thanks for your time, Captain Wood. I really appreciate it.”

“You can call me Lexa. And you’re welcome.” For some reason, Lexa is sad to see the girl leave. She feels a sort of connection to her - kindred spirits, so to speak. 

And, Lexa realizes with a jolt, several hours have passed since she’s thought about her predicament with Clarke.

Octavia turns back on the doorstep. “Um… Lexa?”

“Yeah?” Lexa pauses with her hand on the doorknob.

“Would you… Could you… Do you know... I really want…”

“Spit it out!” Anya shouts from the living room, earning herself a glare from Lexa.

“I’m eighteen,” Octavia says, offhandedly. “Do you know anyone who could give me flying lessons?”

Lexa feels her own eyes light up with excitement. “Yeah, absolutely,” She almost crows. “I know a few people. Let me make some ca - oh, wait, you don’t live out here, do you?” 

Lexa suddenly remembers that Octavia said she goes to Joliet Junior College. In an instant, she realizes where she’s heard the name Joliet before. She knows someone else that lives there, or at least nearby - Bellamy Blake.

“Wait.. Joliet, _Illinois?”_ She blurts out. And then, “Octavia, where are you staying?”

Octavia shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, looking every bit the teenager she is with her backpack slung over her shoulder and her eyes big and shiny in her face. “Uh, I’m just gonna, like, get a hotel…?” 

“Do you have money?” Anya has, once again, appeared right behind Lexa at the door. “How did you even get out here?”

“I drove,” Octavia says, defensively. Her eyes flash. She doesn’t like being questioned. “And yes, I have some money.”

Lexa hones in on that. “Some? How much is some? Can you afford a hotel? How long are you planning to stay out here?”

“Jesus,” Octavia mumbles, sounding petulant. “You guys ask more questions than my br -- than my parents did!”

“You should stay here,” Lexa and Anya say at the same time. 

Lexa looks at her sister incredulously. After all, it had only been hours ago that Anya was eyeing Octavia with mistrust and scolding Lexa for being listed on the internet.

Anya shrugs. “What? She’s a kid!”

“I’m not a kid…” Octavia starts to argue. 

The snapping of Octavia’s eyes reminds Lexa of Clarke, and her heart lurches.

“Okay, no, you’re not a kid. You’re legally an adult,” Lexa says hastily. “But if you’re going to want flying lessons you should save your money. I can get you a discount for sure, but it’ll still cost. Why don’t you just stay here at least for tonight and we’ll figure it out in the morning. Okay?”

“Are you sure?” Octavia looks at the two of them with one eyebrow raised (another Clarke-ism, Lexa notices) and takes a small step back toward the door.

“Positive,” Lexa says, moving out of the way again. “I have a spare room. But beware, Titus loves having visitors sleep over, so he might insist on crawling into bed with you.”

Having heard his name, Titus lifts his head up from the rug where Anya dumped him when she stood up. He yawns widely and wags his stump tail, too lazy to get up.

Octavia laughs, reentering the house. “Not a problem. I’m a great cuddler.” She walks over to Titus and pats his blocky head. “You be the little spoon, ‘kay? Just don’t fart on me.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Lexa jokes. 

“Actually, do,” Anya counters. “He has Dutch-ovened me more times than I can count.”

Titus sighs heavily and everyone laughs.

\------

(Titus)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did YOU write reports on in school? Tell me in comments! And as always, thanks for reading!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little bit shorter of a chapter but there was really no way to add on any more and still have a good ending point. So this is what we got. :)
> 
> As always, thank you to the amazing Underthecovers for all that you do for me. Can't wait to have Oculus meetups with you! 
> 
> See photos at the end for fun parallels.

**October 21**

**07:55:40**

To Lexa’s intense surprise, Octavia is already up when she comes downstairs. She’s sitting on one of the stools at the breakfast bar, legs tucked up underneath her. Titus is at her feet, sprawled out on the floor.

“I figured out your coffee maker,” Octavia says, lifting the mug she’s holding. “Hope that’s okay. There’s still, like, three-quarters of the pot full.”

“Sure,” Lexa says, smiling. She pads into the kitchen and pours herself a cup of coffee. “Did you sleep okay? Titus didn’t keep you awake too much, did he?”

The kibble makes a racket when Lexa pours it into Titus’s food bowl.

“Nope,” Octavia chirps. “He kept me nice and warm. I slept great. Thanks for letting me crash here.” She winces at her choice of words. “Sorry, I mean  _ sleep _ here.”

“No problem,” Lexa laughs and seats herself on the other stool at the breakfast bar. “Speaking of that, I’ll call a friend of mine who is a flight instructor in a while. But aren’t you missing school to be here?”

Octavia looks down at the floor. “Yeah,” she admits. “But I’m a pretty good student. I’m sure I can make it up when I get back.”

Eyeing her skeptically, Lexa says nothing, just sips her coffee.

“My, uh, parents died two years ago.” One side of her lips quirk up. “I suddenly became  _ that kid _ .”

“I’m really sorry to hear that,” Lexa murmurs. Her own parents hadn’t died when she was young but she knows what it feels like to lose the stability of the adults in your life. “What do you mean, you became ‘that kid?’”

Anger flashes in Octavia’s eyes. “You know, the one that everyone pities. The ‘troubled one.’ The one that everyone whispers about in the hallway. And you know it’s you they’re whispering about because the whispers stop as soon as you appear.” Octavia’s foot jiggles absently as she speaks.

“I do know,” Lexa nods. 

Octavia looks up to meet Lexa’s eyes. “Were you that kid, too?” 

The hope in her voice is almost breaking Lexa’s heart. She wishes she could relate to Octavia in this way, but she can’t.

“No,” the crestfallen look on the younger girl’s face tugs at Lexa’s heart. “Actually my sister was the troubled one.”

“You mean Anya, the one who was here yesterday?”

“Yeah. Our parents divorced and Anya… didn’t take it well.” Lexa sets her half empty coffee mug down on the breakfast bar and stands up. She shuffles into the kitchen and opens the cupboard where the bread is. “She acted out quite a bit. You know, teenage rebellion kind of stuff. She got awful grades.”

“What about you?”

Lexa pops two pieces of bread into the toaster and pushes the button down. The bread disappears from view into the appliance.

“I did the opposite. I doubled my efforts. Got straight A’s. Worked harder at everything. Trained harder for my sports teams. Kept my room, or, actually, my  _ half _ of the room, spotless.”

Propping her chin in her hand, Octavia hums. “I bet that pissed Anya off.”

A burst of laughter pours forth from Lexa’s mouth. She crosses to another cupboard and removes two plates, placing them on the counter. “You could say that. She used to yell at me all the time. Said that the better I made myself look, the worse I made  _ her _ look. It took a long time before she figured out that I was just dealing with shit in my own way and it had nothing to do with her.”

“Were you close as kids?”

“We were for a while. But the way we dealt with stress in our lives was so different that it nearly drove us completely apart.”

Octavia sighs. “I can relate to  _ that.” _

The toaster pops and the pieces of toasted bread fly up into the air. Lexa deftly catches them, one piece in each hand, and transfers the pieces of toast to the two plates.

Octavia starts laughing. “Nice.”

Giving a mock bow, Lexa says, “Do you take butter on your toast?”

“Yes, please. Unless you happen to have any Vegemite laying around.”

“Vegemite!” Lexa laughs. “No, sorry. That was one thing I could never get into when I was visiting Australia.”

“My neighbor used to go to Australia, like, twice per year. She and her wife used to live there and still have family and friends there I guess. She always brought back Vegemite and I tried it at her house once. She said it was an acquired taste but I liked it from the start.” Octavia shrugs. “But just butter is fine.”

They are quiet while Lexa butters the toast. When she’s done, she hands one of the plates to Octavia before sitting back down on her stool.

“Tell me why you’re really here,” Lexa says, licking a toast crumb off the corner of her mouth. “I  _ know _ you didn’t drive all the way to Oregon from Illinois just to interview me for a report for a college class.”

Octavia freezes, the piece of toast halfway to her mouth. Her eyes have a wild, cornered look in them.

“Listen,” Lexa says, her voice gentle. “As long as you’re not in trouble with the law, and as long as I’m not going to have anyone pounding down my door and accusing me of kidnapping you, you’re fine to stay here.” As an afterthought, she adds, “Although I do think you should probably contact your teachers at your high school.”

Setting the toast back down, Octavia stares at Lexa for several seconds before speaking. 

“I’m not in trouble with the law. I don’t have any parents to pound on your door. My legal guardians don’t want anything to do with me now that I’m eighteen, so no one is going to come looking for me.”

Lexa waits quietly. 

“I want to be a pilot. My dad was a pilot and we…  _ I _ have always been interested in it. I heard about the crash of three eighty seven and I just… I was so in awe of what you and Be -- First Officer Blake did that day. You, like, kept your cool and saved  _ everyone _ on that airplane. I want to be that kind of pilot someday.”

Chewing her toast thoughtfully, Lexa looks at Octavia with curious eyes. She takes in Octavia’s dark hair, her light dusting of freckles, the shape of her nose. Lexa replays her conversations with Octavia in her mind. She feels the epiphany coming before it hits. She turns on her stool to face Octavia squarely.

“Why don’t you just ask Bellamy to teach you to fly?”

Octavia freezes mid-chew. Her eyes widen and she stares at Lexa, but says nothing.

“He’s your brother, isn’t he?”

Lexa almost feels bad for being so direct but she can’t find it in her to soften the questions. She’s not upset with Octavia for not telling her right away that she’s Bellamy’s sister; she’s sure there is a reason the girl withheld that particular piece of information. She just doesn’t want to beat around the bush anymore.

Octavia nods slowly and finishes chewing her bite of toast. She swallows visibly.

“Sorry.”

“For what?”

“For not telling you who I really am from the start.”

Lexa shrugs. “I’m sure you had your reasons. As long as you’re not here to murder me or spy on me or something, I don’t really need to know.”

Octavia stares at her. “Why are you being so… cool?”

“What do you mean?”

The teenager eyes Lexa suspiciously. “Like… you’re not telling me to call anyone and tell them where I am, or yelling at me about missing school…?”

Lexa shrugs again. “Octavia, you’re eighteen. Unless you’re under medical guardianship of someone or something like that, no one really  _ has _ to know where you are, do they? If you flunk out of school, that’s your business. Although I’ll tell you that will make it a lot harder to become a pilot.” 

Picking up her now-cold coffee, Lexa swirls it around in the mug. She gets up to put it in the microwave. 

She continues, “I guess the crash of three eighty seven put a lot of things in perspective for me. Those ninety seconds or whatever it was between realizing we had a problem and when we finally came to a stop on the ground made me realize that nothing in life is permanent. The things that really matter are the impressions we leave on people and places.”

“Is that what you were thinking about during the crash?” 

Lexa shakes her head. “No. I was thinking about getting the airplane down onto the ground in as close to one piece as I possibly could. But I guess in the back of my mind, I was thinking that, if I died, would the world be impacted at all by my having been here?”

“You mean, like, wondering if people would miss you?”

“No, I knew I would be missed. My sister, my dog, my friends… they’d all miss me. But it was more like… I don’t know… have I  _ done  _ anything with my life? Have I made a positive impact on the world, beyond just flying people from here to there? Is there anyone who could say that their life was enriched or changed by me? I guess it just kind of taught me to not sweat the small stuff as much.”

Octavia is quiet for a minute, processing that.

“Bellamy is pretty fucked up, you know. By the crash? He took it pretty hard.” 

Lexa gets the sense that Octavia is going to continue speaking, so she patiently waits.

“I lived with him and his wife. And Madi. Ever since our parents died. I lived in their basement. I’m guessing he never mentioned me in all the times you guys talked.”

Silently, Lexa shakes her head.

Octavia scoffs. “Of course not. I was basically hidden away. He was ashamed of me, I think.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because!” Octavia bursts out. “He always just pretended like I wasn’t there! Like, above the floor, he had this perfect family. Mom, dad, kid. But under the floor? The secret little sister he didn’t want anyone to know about. I was never perfect like him. I was always, like, loud. I took up a lot of energetic space… like, I have a temper. I’m passionate.”

Lexa smiles. She can imagine that, having known Octavia for all of fifteen hours.

“I didn’t fit into his nice, neat little lifestyle. So he just, like, pretended I wasn’t there. And now that I’m eighteen, and now that they have their second kid, they don’t want anything to do with me. They’re ‘too busy,’” Octavia hooks her fingers to indicate quotations.

Frowning, Lexa says, “Did they expressly say that to you?” She’s having trouble reconciling that with the Bellamy Blake she knows.

“Well, no,” grumbles Octavia. “At least Bellamy didn’t. Echo kind of did. I really think she’d throw me off a cliff if given the chance.”

“So that’s why you’ve never asked Bellamy to take you flying?”

Octavia rolls her eyes. “No, actually I did ask him. He said, ‘No way, it’s too dangerous a profession, and the pay is terrible.’” She lowered her voice and furrowed her eyebrows, imitating Bellamy.

This is surprising to Lexa. “Bellamy told you it was too dangerous? Did he tell you this before or after September tenth?”

“After,” Octavia answers. She pops the last bite of toast in her mouth and brushes the crumbs off her hands. “Prior to the crash he was, like, super gung-ho about me becoming a pilot. But like I said before, the crash really fucked him up.”

“He called me not too long after it,” Lexa admits. “He didn’t sound great. He said he was having nightmares and stuff. I was too, actually. It was pretty bad for a while. But then…”

“Then what?” Octavia asks. She uses the tips of her toes to pet Titus where he is laying on the floor next to her stool.

Warning bells sound in Lexa’s mind. She isn’t sure if she wants to have this conversation with Octavia or not. Especially since the information might get back to Bellamy somehow.  _ But so what? _ Lexa thinks. Bellamy already knows about Clarke.

“Then I met Clarke.”

“Who’s Cla --  _ oh, _ isn’t she the investigator?” Leaning forward on her stool, Octavia’s eyes sparkle with excitement at the prospect of such a juicy piece of gossip. “Tell me about  _ that!” _

Lexa feels her heart constrict.  _ What is there to tell? _ She doesn’t even know where she and Clarke stand, currently. 

“There’s not much to tell at the moment,” Lexa finally says. “We both knew it was risky but we just kind of… fell into it. Then I screwed it up.” Lexa shrugs. “End of story, at least for the time being.”

“You haven’t talked to her? Can’t you talk it out?”

It’s been so many days now that Lexa can’t even begin to think of where she  _ might _ start trying to talk it out with Clarke. She doesn’t even know if Clarke would be open to the idea of talking in the first place, much less whether or not they could resolve anything. Lexa knows she didn’t handle the situation right, but she also knows that she was doing the best she could under the circumstances. She can only hope that Clarke also realizes that and is willing to take that into account when they eventually do talk.

Because they’re going to have to talk, right? They can’t just leave things up in suspense like they are. 

“I hope so,” Lexa finally responds. Then, deflecting the conversation back to Octavia, she says, “Is there really a report you needed to interview me for, or was that just an excuse to get out here and talk to me?”

Octavia laughs. “No, there really is a report. It’s due at the end of the month. Although, if that was really  _ all _ I wanted, I’d have just found you on social media or something. Or maybe asked Bellamy to connect us.”

The reminder of Bellamy makes Lexa’s eyebrows raise. “He has no idea you’re here, does he?”

“Nope,” Octavia says, popping the “p” sound on the end of the word. She almost sounds smug about it. Lexa can’t really blame her after what she’s told her about Bellamy.

“Don’t you think he’s probably worried about you?”

“Nope,” Octavia says again, popping the “p” once more. “I doubt he’s even noticed I’m not there.”

Lexa doubts that very much, but she isn’t going to argue with Octavia. She gets up off her stool and picks up her phone. “Okay, well, I’m going to call a friend of mine from the Air Force. He lives about forty-five minutes from here and does flying lessons on the side. I’ll see if he can fit us in. He owes me a favor, anyway.”

“Oh yeah?” Octavia says. “Did you, like, save his life in combat or something and now he owes you?”

Lexa starts laughing. “No,” she finally says. “Neither of us ever saw actual combat. And anyway, even if we had, we wouldn’t have fought together. He’s, like, six or seven years younger than me. I met him right before I got out of the Air Force and he had just gotten in. No, I bought him concert tickets once. He didn’t have cash to pay me back so I told him he could write me an I.O.U.”

“An I.O.U?” Octavia looks puzzled and suddenly Lexa feels  _ really _ old.

“Nevermind,” Lexa says, shaking her head. “Let me call him.”

  
  


**15:15:52**

The Cessna 172M stands on the tarmac, glinting in the afternoon sun. The sleek body, front-mounted propeller and red and white paint remind Lexa of the Cirrus SR20 she had first flown all those years ago.

“I’m going to fly  _ that?” _ Octavia asks, staring in awe at the little plane. “Like, for real, I’m going to fly it?”

Coming up beside Octavia and Lexa, the flight instructor, Lincoln, laughs. “Yep, you sure are.”

Lincoln Smith is twenty four years old - seven years Lexa’s junior - and is absolutely the last person Lexa would ever expect to see in a rural airport like this one. They’ve driven out to Aurora, a small town south of the city, where Lincoln has his flight school at the Aurora regional airport. It’s so small it doesn’t even have a tower - pilots coming in or out of the airport just have to get on the radio and say what they’re doing. The lack of organization makes Lexa’s pulse quicken.

Lincoln is a tall, muscular guy with a shaved head and a very expressive face. He looks more like a model than a farm-guy, but Lexa knows he lives somewhere out here in the sticks. 

“How the hell are you, Lexa?” Lincoln asks, bumping her with his broad shoulder. “I haven’t talked to you since… the Muse concert?” Lincoln suddenly laughs. “Oh shit! I never paid you back, did I?”

Lexa mock glares at him. “Nope, but consider this your payment. And thanks for fitting us in so quickly.”

“A flying lesson in exchange for floor tickets and a meet-and-greet,” Lincoln pretends to weigh the two. “Seems fair.” Turning his attention to Octavia, who is still staring at the airplane, he says, “So who’s this up-and-coming pilot?”

“I’m Octavia,” says the dark-haired girl, not taking her eyes off the plane.

“She’s the sister of a friend of mine,” Lexa says vaguely. “She just turned eighteen and has always wanted to fly. I figured I could hook her up.”

“You sure can,” Lincoln says and Lexa thinks he might be staring at Octavia’s ass.

_ Men, _ Lexa thinks, fondly rolling her eyes at her friend.  _ One track minds. _

“Well,” Lincoln says, placing a hand on Octavia’s shoulder. “Shall we go meet your bird for the day?”

The three of them approach the small airplane. 

“Can I touch it?” Octavia asks, reverently.

Lincoln chuckles. “Sure, he won’t bite.”

“He?” Lexa asks. “Aren’t all machines  _ she? _ Get your pronouns right, Smith, sheesh!” She grins at Lincoln.

“I know, I know,” Lincoln waves his hand. “But… this one’s a he. His name is Al. Named after Al Haynes.” Lincoln gives Lexa a pointed look. 

She understands the connection. Captain Al Haynes was a pilot for United Airlines. In 1989, Haynes, his first officer, the flight engineer and an off-duty training pilot who happened to be on board somehow managed to land an airliner that had suffered a catastrophic engine failure in one of its three engines and had subsequently lost all hydraulic fluid. In spite of losing nearly all their flight controls, the crew had brought the airplane down relatively successfully, landing at a small regional airport in Iowa. While there were fatalities, more people survived the crash landing than didn’t, and Captain Haynes and his crew were lauded for their performance. The circumstances of the flight had been entered into flight simulators numerous times since the accident and no one had ever been able to recreate the landing performed by Haynes and his crew.

“Al,” Octavia says, patting the side of the plane as though it’s a humongous, metal horse. “Hi Al.”

“He’s all fueled up and ready for you. I’ll show you how to do the pre-flight checklist and then we will be up, up and away!”

At the mention of the pre-flight checklist, Lexa’s ears perk up. Her palms begin to feel sweaty. She hasn’t thought about pre-flight checklists since September tenth, when she and Bellamy completed what they didn’t know would be their last pre-flight checklist for months, maybe longer. She stands idly by, feeling slightly detached, as Lincoln and Octavia flit around the airplane, testing various things and performing visual inspections.

“Alrighty,” Lincoln says, at last. “All aboard!”

Octavia leaps into the left front seat, buckles her seatbelt, pulls the giant earphones down off the hook behind her left shoulder and pops them onto her ears.

“You want to sit up front with her? Ride shotgun, so to speak?” Lincoln asks.

Lexa feels the color drain from her face. “Y-you’re the flight instructor, not me!” Her voice is shaky and tries to cover it with a chuckle, hoping Lincoln won’t notice. “That’s not even legal.”

He studies her face, his brown eyes gentle. “I trust you,” he says, but doesn’t press the issue and folds the seat forward, motioning for Lexa to climb into the back seat. She sits down in the seat behind where Lincoln will be sitting.

Once everyone is buckled in and wearing their headsets, Lincoln instructs Octavia how to operate the foot pedals to steer the airplane along the tarmac and taxiways. He tells her to sit on her hands so she doesn’t feel tempted to use the control column as a steering wheel.

“It won’t do anything negative,” Lincoln explains. “But everyone around will see your ailerons flapping up and down and know you’re a rookie pilot.”

Lexa starts laughing quietly; it’s true and she knows it.

Once they’re lined up on the runway, Lincoln shows Octavia where the lever for the throttle is.

“Keep it straight with the foot pedals and watch the knots. When you hit sixty, pull back gently on the control column and bring the nose into the air.”

“Really?” Octavia’s voice almost squeaks through the headset. “ _ I’m _ doing this?”

Lincoln looks at Octavia through his sunglasses. “You absolutely are. I’m right here and can take control over at any point if you’re scared.”

“I’m not!” Octavia interjects, and Lexa believes her.

“Okay, are you ready?” Lincoln asks.

“Ready!” Octavia reaches for the throttle lever and eases it out slowly.

Lexa holds her breath and watches the speed indicator.

Twenty knots… thirty… forty...

The airplane wobbles a little as Octavia’s feet make corrections on the pedals.

Fifty knots… fifty five… sixty knots.

“Rotate,” Lincoln says.

Octavia’s biceps flex slightly as she pulls back on the yoke. 

Lexa closes her eyes and tips her head back. She feels the airplane take to the air eagerly, just like the Cirrus did so many years ago. 

_ It’s like it didn’t want to be on the ground… _

“I’m flying!” Octavia shrieks. “I’m really flying!”

“You really are!” Lincoln laughs. “Keep the wings level and don’t pull back too far.”

Lexa opens her eyes. She’s not looking out the window. She’s not looking at the instruments. She’s looking at Octavia’s face. Her eyes are wide, her eyebrows raised. Her mouth is open in a joyful, euphoric smile. She’s sitting forward in her seat, eager and excited.

_ She’s home, _ Lexa thinks, and her eyes well up with tears. She remembers feeling the way Octavia is feeling right now. She knows that Octavia has found her passion, her future profession. She remembers when that moment happened to her - she had never been more sure of anything in her life.  _ This _ was where she belonged. And maybe she still does.

Suddenly, Lexa realizes she was looking at this whole situation with Clarke all wrong. She was so busy worrying about what Clarke would be giving up that she didn’t consider what she would be gaining. 

_ This  _ is the way you should feel about your job. Clarke’s eyes don’t light up like this when she talks about her job as an NTSB investigator; they light up like this when she talks about  _ art. _

Art is Clarke’s passion. Her home is in a studio or a classroom. Just like flying is Lexa’s passion and the sky is her home. 

“I’m really flying!” Octavia exclaims again.

And the sky is Octavia’s home, too.

“Welcome home, Octavia,” Lexa says into the headset. “Welcome home.”

  
  


**16:40:41**

As soon as Lincoln (who had landed the Cessna after letting Octavia fly around for almost an hour) turns off the engine, Lexa is unbuckling her seatbelt and trying to reach around Lincoln to open the door of the Cessna.

“What’s your rush?” Lincoln asks, twisting to look over his shoulder as Lexa’s hand gropes around for the door handle.

“I need to make a phone call!” Lexa nearly shouts. She suddenly feels overcome with fear that it might be too late for her to fix things with Clarke.

Lincoln opens the door, steps out and pulls his seat forward. Lexa practically catapults out of the airplane. 

She’s already in her contacts, clicking the G for  _ Griffin,  _ scrolling until she finds Clarke’s name and tapping it as reaches her car. She leans on the trunk as she listens to the ringing on the line.

“Hello?” Clarke’s voice comes through clear and heavenly. “Lexa?”

“Hi,” Lexa exhales. She feels as though all the words she wants - no,  _ needs _ \- to say to Clarke are all bottlenecked behind her tongue, which lies useless in her mouth. Of course, now when she  _ finally _ knows what to say, she can’t get a single word out.

“What’s up?” Clarke doesn’t sound upset, just curious. “I was actually going to - ”

“Listen,” Lexa interrupts, her tongue finally working again. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Clarke. I - I panicked… I was thinking about this all wrong.” 

She squeezes her eyes closed and tries to harness singular thoughts and put them into words.

“You said you’d give up your career to be with me, and that scared me. Not because I’m afraid of commitment, but because I was afraid of causing  _ you _ pain; causing you to have to give something up. You having to give up your career so that I could keep mine made me feel… awful. Even though it was only hypothetical, really.”

“Lex…” Clarke starts, but Lexa is still going.

“Just.. let me say this. Okay?”

Clarke is quiet.

“I’m sorry. I understand better now. I know you like your job most of the time, but I know that it doesn’t mean the same thing to you that flying means to me. You were telling me that you love - or  _ could _ love - me more than your job as an NTSB investigator. That you’d rather give up a job that isn’t your passion anyway than to lose me. And the problem was that I feel so…  _ unspecial _ , that I couldn’t fathom that. But that’s on me. And I’m really sorry, Clarke. I… really miss you. And I’m sorry I freaked out like that.”

“It’s  _ okay, _ Lexa,” Clarke says quickly, probably worried that she won’t be able to get many words out. But when Lexa doesn’t say anything, Clarke continues. “I under _ stand. _ I’m not going anywhere. I was just giving you time to get your thoughts in order. I’m not angry, okay?”

“Really?” Lexa feels like she’s going to cry and laugh at the same time. “You’re not mad at me for losing my shit?”

“ _ No, _ ” Clarke says emphatically. “I’m not. Your stress level has been through the roof lately. I can’t expect you to be… I don’t know… reacting to things with your normal level of rationality. I know  _ I  _ wouldn’t!”

Lexa just laughs wetly, now realizing that the tears she felt coming are spilling down her cheeks. They’re tears of relief.

“Listen…” Clarke says. “I was actually going to call you today. They’ve set a hearing date. December fifth. You need to be in D.C. by the third, okay?”

The abrupt change of topic causes Lexa’s breath to leave her in a quick  _ whoosh. _

“But,” Clarke says before Lexa can speak, “I’m going to come back out to Seattle on the first of November. I need to wrap up a couple things with Boeing. And… I’d really like to see you, if that’s okay?”

Octavia and Lincoln are now out of the Cessna, inspecting the outside and getting ready to pull it into its parking spot. Octavia gives Lexa two thumbs up, her face radiating happiness.

“Yeah,” Lexa says, smiling at Octavia and giving her a thumbs up in return. “That’s more than okay.”

“Great,” Clarke says, sounding relieved. “I’ll let you know when I have my plans solidified.”

“Sounds good.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then Clarke says, “Lexa? Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Lexa answers. 

“What made you realize… all of that?”

Lexa squints, looking at Octavia. She’s helping Lincoln attach the tow bar to the nose wheel. She holds in a laugh as she watches tiny Octavia pulling with all her might to move Al along the ground. 

“I, uh…” Lexa shakes her head, laughing softly. “I just needed to be reminded of the things that matter most in life. Fortunately, someone came along who could help me with that.”

“Well,” Clarke says. “Whoever it is, tell them I said ‘thanks.’”

“I will.”

“I gotta run, but Lexa?”

“Yeah?”

“I do love you.”

The warm feeling that spreads inside Lexa’s chest puts the bright October sun to shame.

“I love you too, Clarke.”

\-----

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Al is a real plane. He is a Cessna 172M. He is also the first plane I ever flew when I was doing my private pilot license. These photos are of me flying Al and then pulling Al along the ground. LOL! Heavy!
> 
> Also, in case you want to look it up, the crash mentioned was United Airlines 232. I have been to the site of the crash in Iowa (my grandma lived in South Dakota so it wasn't a far drive) and visited the memorial.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarke will return soon, my lovelies. We are getting through the plot little by little. 
> 
> Can I just mention how much I freaking LOVE Anya??? She is turning out to be one of my favorite characters to write - specifically her banter with Lexa. As Underthecovers said to me the other day, "it's probably because in the show they're so serious. Especially Anya, whose cheekbones are even terrifying." (That's pretty much a direct quote - and so true! LOL.)
> 
> As always, comments are appreciated.

**October 22**

**06:10:39**

The sound of her phone buzzing on the nightstand jerks Lexa awake out of one of the deepest sleeps she’s had in a long time. She considers being irritated for a second but reconsiders when she sees the name on the screen.

**F.O. Blake**

Sighing, Lexa swipes to accept the call.

“Hey,” she says into the phone, trying not to sound like she was asleep ten seconds ago.

“Did I wake you?” Bellamy’s voice is strained. 

Lexa rubs her eyes with her free hand. “Well, it’s six a.m. on a Saturday, so…”

“Shit,” Bellamy curses. “I always forget about the time difference.”

Lexa starts laughing. “You’re a pilot, Bellamy, how do you forget about time differences?” Then she sobers, remembering exactly who is currently asleep in her guest room.

“You heard about the hearing, right? December fifth?”

“Yeah,” Lexa replies. “Clarke called me. We have to be in D.C. by the third. Or at least I do.”

“I do, too,” comes the response. “But… uh… I have no idea what my life will look like by then.”

“What do you mean?” There’s something in his tone that alarms Lexa - a kind of deep despair that she hasn’t heard from him before.

There’s silence on the other end of the phone.

“Bellamy? What’s going on?”

“Just - my life is falling apart,” Bellamy says quietly. “Echo is… I don’t even know. Crazy? I’m not sure if it’s postpartum hormones or what. She wasn’t like this after Madi. And there’s other family drama. I’m just… not dealing with it well. Any of it.”

Lexa already knows what he means by ‘other family drama.’ Obviously he’s referring to Octavia, but she can’t tell him outright that she knows that. So instead, she presses, “What do you mean by ‘other family drama?’”

For a second, she thinks Bellamy might have hung up because he’s so quiet. Then he speaks.

“My little sister was -  _ is _ \- living with us but she…” His voice trails off and he’s quiet again.

“She what?” Lexa prompts after several seconds.

“I fucked up.”

This catches Lexa by surprise. She had been expecting Bellamy to spout off about how his  _ obnoxious _ little sister had run off and was ungrateful for everything he and Echo had done. But then Lexa realizes that she’s looking at this through Octavia’s lens. She tries to wipe away expectation and listens to Bellamy.

But Bellamy isn’t saying anything more.

“Do you want to tell me how you fucked up?” Lexa asks gently.

Bellamy sighs a big, heavy sigh.

“Our parents passed away a couple years ago. My sister was pretty close with them both. There’s a pretty good age gap between us but we were close, too. When I married Echo, my sister kind of… I don’t know… took it hard, I guess.”

Lexa hums thoughtfully, listening.

“She never liked Echo, really,” Bellamy continues. “They never really got along great but they just kind of tolerated one another for my sake, I think.”

“Okay,” Lexa murmurs. “So what happened then?”

“Well, when our parents died, there was no other family to take her in. She was only sixteen at the time. My parents never had any other family, so that just left me. And Echo.”

Lexa can foresee where this is going. “Go on,” she coaxes.

Bellamy is silent for a few seconds and then reroutes the conversation a little.

“When my sister was born, our mom was pretty overwhelmed. Our dad was working often. He was a pilot and was gone a lot, and she was trying to work, too. And my sister was a fussy baby. So I helped her as much as I could. My mom, I mean. And I guess my sister, too, by default. We spent a lot of time together. I kind of looked out for her, I guess.”

“Kind of took her under your wing, you might say?” Lexa makes a feeble attempt at a joke to try and bring some comic relief.

“Ha ha,” Bellamy drones. “Yes, Captain Hilarious, took her under my wing. Anyway, as I was saying before your awful joke, we were close for a long time. Did a lot of things together. We even both wanted to be pilots like our dad. But then when I married Echo, we kind of… distanced.”

Lexa props herself up against the headboard with pillows and crosses her legs at the ankles. She has the whole bed to herself since Titus is sleeping in the guest room with Octavia - the very subject of the conversation Lexa is currently having. The irony almost makes her laugh.

“Okay, so what is bothering you about Octavia right now?”

“Well, she - ” Bellamy stops short and Lexa immediately realizes her mistake. “How did you know her name is Octavia?”

“Uh,” Lexa stalls, trying and failing to come up with an explanation or think of a time when he  _ might _ have mentioned her name. But she’s got nothing.

“Oh my  _ GOD! _ ” Bellamy roars, apparently pulling the phone away from his mouth for a second because there’s a lot of shuffling and his voice is muffled momentarily. “She really did it.”

Lexa is confused. “She really did what?”

“She really drove her skinny ass all the way to Oregon to find you, didn’t she?”

“Wait, she told you she was going to come here?” Now Lexa is  _ really _ confused. She had thought Bellamy had no idea where Octavia was, but now she’s not sure  _ what _ he knows.

Bellamy is chuckling in what sounds like a mixture of disbelief and aggravation. “Not exactly, but she has talked about wanting to meet you. She was pretty impressed, I guess you could say, with what you did on three eighty seven.”

“What  _ I _ did?” Lexa’s voice raises in both pitch and volume. “Don’t you mean what  _ we _ did?”

“ _ We _ didn’t do anything!” Bellamy shouts. “ _ You _ saved the plane! I just moved the god damn flaps!”

The absurdity of Bellamy’s outlook on the crash is so vast that Lexa can’t come up with words for several seconds. A flight is a team effort. Everyone, from the pilot to flight attendants to the ground crew, is involved in the success of a commercial airline flight. If something goes wrong, everyone on board (and some on the ground) must perform their role properly and effectively in order to maximize the chances of a safe landing.

Suddenly, it occurs to Lexa that Bellamy was flying the plane when they were coming in for a landing. Not her.

“Bellamy,” Lexa sputters. “Do you - are you - is this - ” She huffs a sigh and tries again. “Are you  _ blaming  _ yourself for this crash?”

Silence.

“Because  _ you _ were flying at the time?”

Silence.

“Bellamy!” Lexa snaps, getting both irritated and worried. “Answer me!”

“Of course I blame myself!” Bellamy explodes. “ _ I _ was flying!  _ I _ had the airplane. When you handed control to me, you said  _ ‘your aircraft’ _ and I said back,  _ ‘my aircraft.’ _ That means  _ I _ was in charge of the plane. I should have noticed something was wrong!”

His words are clanging in Lexa’s ears. She can’t even begin to think of how he  _ might  _ have come to that conclusion.

“But Bellamy,” she says slowly. “There was  _ nothing _ to notice.”

“I should have tried to accelerate at some point earlier than, what, fifteen hundred feet above the ground?”

“But why would you do that?” Lexa almost bellows. “There was no need to have done that! This was a fluke, Bellamy! A total fluke!”

Bellamy lets a little sob slip. “But I should have  _ done _ something!”

“ _ What could you have done?” _ Lexa is proper yelling now. “Tell me right now, First Officer Blake, what could you have done? If I’d been flying the plane, what would you have told  _ me _ to do that’s different than what  _ you _ did?”

Silence again.

“Tell me right now, Bellamy.”

“I can’t,” he whispers.

“And why can’t you?” Lexa knows she is being harsh and stern, but she can’t seem to get through to him any other way. Her military background comes through and her voice is firm, unyielding.

“Because…” Bellamy’s voice is thin and shaky. “Because there was nothing either of us could have done.”

“That’s right,” Lexa says, more gently now. “There was nothing we could have done. We didn’t know. We didn’t have a chance. It was a fluke. An  _ accident. _ But listen to me, Bellamy. We are some of the lucky ones. There were no casualties in our accident.”

Bellamy sniffles.

Lexa continues. “There are some airline captains who face a situation like ours - a situation where there was nothing they could do to avert the impending disaster - and their airplane crashed and people died. Sometimes everyone died, sometimes only some people died. But we didn’t have that. Everyone walked away from our airplane that day. We are  _ lucky _ , Bellamy.”

Lexa is surprised to find herself crying right along with Bellamy.

“Yeah,” Bellamy says, his voice cracking painfully. “I know.”

Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Lexa clutches the phone to her ear. “You have a chance to mend things with Octavia. Some pilots never get that chance.”

“Is she there with you?” Bellamy asks.

“Yeah. She showed up on my doorstep the other day, saying she wanted to interview me for a report for a college class.”

Bellamy laughs. “Yeah, Industrial Sci. She’s a smart kid.”

Lexa smiles. “She is. Like her big brother.”

They’re both quiet for a moment. 

“She loves you, Bellamy,” Lexa says quietly. “She looks up to you. She wants to fly…”

“She’s been begging for flying lessons,” Bellamy admits. “I told her she had to wait ‘til she was eighteen. But then three eighty seven happened and… I don’t know… the idea of her flying just terrifies me now.”

Lexa understands. After what she and Bellamy went through, it makes total sense that Bellamy would be fearful for the safety of his sister. Whatever qualms Echo has with Octavia, it seems obvious that Bellamy does not share them. 

“She’s going to be a great pilot, Bellamy,” Lexa tells him. “She has good instincts in the air.”

There is a couple beats of silence as Bellamy tries to figure out what that probably means.

He takes a long inhale. “Yeah?” He finally says. “How’d she like her first flying lesson?”

“Loved it,” Lexa says flatly. “You’re going to have a hell of a time keeping her out of the sky now.”

There is some shuffling in the background. Bellamy sniffles again. “Yeah, well, maybe I shouldn’t try to.”

Closing her eyes, Lexa remembers the jubilant expression on Octavia’s face as she took to the sky for the first time in Lincoln’s little Cessna. That flight had been transformative not just for Octavia but for Lexa as well. It’s funny how a few thousand feet of altitude can change your entire perspective on life.

“She’s at home in the air,” Lexa says, softly. “Let her fly.”

  
  


**09:00:17**

Anya appears on the doorstep at nine o’clock sharp. She bursts through the door, cawing her usual greeting of “sistaaaaa!” and scares Lexa, who had fallen back to sleep on the couch, half to death.

“What are you doing sleeping  _ there? _ ” Anya asks. “It’s not like you had anyone to fight with and get yourself relegated to the couch.”

“Hush it,” Lexa grouches, trying to bury her head under a throw pillow. “I had an early morning phone call and then couldn’t go back to sleep, so I was going to watch TV or something but… I guess I fell asleep again.”

“Is Teeny-Bopper still here?” Anya stalks into the kitchen and flicks on the coffee machine.

Rolling her eyes at Anya’s choice of words, Lexa says, “Yes,  _ Octavia _ is still here. She’s still asleep.”

“No I’m not,” Octavia pipes up from the top of the stairs. She joins the sisters on the main level of the house, followed closely by Titus who jumps all over Anya for a good thirty seconds before he even remembers that Lexa exists, which only adds to Lexa’s annoyance.

“Okay, she’s awake,” Lexa corrects petulantly. She’s tired and wants to go back to sleep.

“There, there Oscar the Grouch,” Anya pretends to soothe Lexa. “You can crawl back into your trash can soon enough. You’ll feel better once you’ve had some coffee.”

“I’m about to put  _ you _ in a trash can,” Lexa mumbles, huffing into the kitchen and pulling a mug from the cupboard.

“No you won’t,” Anya gaily replies. “Because you need me to watch Titus for you, and I can’t do that if you murder me and throw me in a dumpster. Besides, you’re going to like what I have to say.”

Lexa just gives Anya a baleful look.

Octavia shivers. “Jesus,” she says. “That look isn’t even directed at me and I’m about to ice over.”

“Don’t mind her,” Anya tips her head in Lexa’s direction while speaking to Octavia. “She can be a bear when she doesn’t get her beauty sleep.  _ Anyway, _ I’m here because we need to go shopping.”

“Shopping?” Lexa complains. “No offense, but that’s about the  _ last _ thing I want to be doing right now.”

“But it’s for  _ fancy clothes _ ,” Anya emphasizes, as though that’s supposed to make it more enticing to Lexa. Lexa, who lives in jeans and hoodies or workout clothes when she’s not in her pilot uniform.

Apparently even Octavia, who has known Lexa for only a few days, sees the disconnect there.

“Um, does Lexa  _ like _ fancy clothes?”

Lexa gives Octavia a grateful look before sipping her coffee aggressively, glowering at Anya over the rim of the mug.

It’s not that Lexa doesn’t like fancy clothes, it’s just that she doesn’t know how to wear them. Or, more accurately, she doesn’t know how to fit into places where she would  _ need _ to wear them. She’s not a dress-up kind of person.

“Why do you need to go shopping for fancy clothes, anyway?” Octavia asks, skirting a grumpy Lexa to get to the coffee pot. 

“I have a gala,” Anya says aristocratically. 

“A what-a?” Octavia doesn’t even try to hide the fact that she has no idea what Anya is talking about. 

“A gala. You know, fancy party? With dinner and usually an auction or some kind of fundraising event?”

Octavia looks at her blankly.

“Oh come  _ on!” _ Anya plants a hand on her hip. “You’ve never been to a gala before?”

“Not everyone works for a multibillion dollar corporation like you do,” Lexa points out.

Anya works for Nike, the world headquarters of which is located just a few miles from Lexa’s house. Anya works in their marketing department which means that she can work from home a lot of the time. This comes in handy when Lexa needs Anya to watch Titus while she flies.

“Well, whatever. It’s tonight. Lexa, I need you to be my plus one. And I’m sure that you don’t have anything in your closet even  _ remotely _ appropriate for a gala. And I need a new dress.” 

“You need a new dress like I need a hole in the head,” Lexa mumbles under her breath.

Anya pretends not to hear her, turns on her heel and marches into the living room, flopping down on the couch. “Get dressed. Both of you.”

“Me?” Octavia asks, pointing to herself. “You want  _ me _ to come along?”

“Sure, why not?” Anya says. “You can help me manage Scrooge over here while we’re at the mall.”

Lexa groans and sets her coffee mug down on the counter a bit harder than is necessary. She stomps toward the stairs. 

“You know, Anya, sometimes I really can’t stand you.”

“Bah, humbug,” Anya drawls after her.

  
  


**10:31:45**

By the time they reach the mall, Lexa is feeling considerably less grouchy. Part of that has to do with the fact that even though Anya is annoying as hell, she’s actually pretty fun to be around. The other reason for the major lift in Lexa’s spirits is a text she received from Clarke right before they left the house.

_ Morning beautiful. ;) _

Two words and Lexa was blushing like a schoolgirl. Which Anya had, of course, immediately picked up on and teased her mercilessly about for half the drive.

“Can we hit up a Dunkin Donuts?” Octavia asks from the backseat. “I’m starving.”

“We don’t have Dunkin Donuts out here,” Anya says as she pulls her car into a parking spot.

Octavia catapults through to the front. “What?!” She demands, aghast. “What do you  _ mean _ you don’t have Dunkin out here? How do you  _ survive?” _

“It’s dreadful,” Anya says with mock seriousness. “We are all very deprived. Come on, we’ll go to Starbucks first.”

Once they have their coffees in hand, and Octavia has a cake pop to take the edge off her hunger, Anya blazes a trail down one of the main concourses of the mall, heading to some fancy shop that Lexa can’t remember the name of.

“I wish I could go to galas,” Octavia says with her mouth full.

“They’re not as wonderful as they sound,” Lexa answers dryly. 

She’s had to be Anya’s plus one to a couple of galas over the last few years. She finds the whole thing very tiresome; a lot of fake people with ridiculous clothes, throwing around money they really don’t have or have altogether too much of. 

“The food is usually pretty good but there’s not much of it.”

“Still,” says Octavia longingly. “It sounds exciting.”

They enter some fancy store and Lexa and Octavia sit on a royal blue, velvet bench waiting for Anya to finish flitting around choosing things off racks to try on.

“Jesus Christ,” Octavia glances around. “Any one of these pieces of clothing costs more than my entire wardrobe combined.”

Lexa laughs. “I doubt that. Unless you wear all hand-me-downs.”

Octavia shakes her head darkly. “My only sibling is Bellamy, remember? I can’t really wear his stuff.”

Lexa sees the opportunity and seizes it. 

“Actually, speaking of Bellamy…”

Octavia looks at her dubiously.

“...He called me this morning.”

“Oh yeah? What - did he call to bitch about his little sister running away? Tell you how awful I am and how he’s so glad I’m not around to - ”

“Actually, no,” Lexa cuts her off. “To be honest, I kind of expected him to say that, based on what you told me about your relationship. But he didn’t say any of that stuff.”

Lexa waits while Octavia decides whether she has the courage to ask what she really wants to ask.

“Well… what  _ did  _ he say, then?”

“He said Echo is crazy.”

Octavia blinks in shock, then tips her head back and laughs. She laughs loudly. So loudly, in fact that the woman hanging up silk blouses and strappy dresses jumps in surprise and turns to glare at Octavia.

Several seconds of boisterous laughter later, Octavia catches her breath and looks at Lexa. “Did he really say that?”

“Cross my heart,” Lexa says. “He said she’s having some kind of crazy hormones or something since having the baby. He didn’t sound too great, honestly.”

Octavia’s face falls, but she’s apparently unwilling to give him grace that easily. “Well… He’s the one who married her.”

“Come on, you don’t mean that,” Lexa says gently. 

She understands, though. For so many years, she and Anya were on completely different planets, it seemed. Each of them thought the other was the problem, but in reality it was an almost complete lack of communication that was the problem. Neither of them had taken the time to really sit down and listen to the other. When they finally did, it had been explosive and emotional but they had emerged with a totally different understanding of each other at the end of it.

“I do, though,” Octavia insists. “He has shown me over and over again that he cares more about Echo than he does about me. He puts her first every single time.”

Lexa shakes her head. “Octavia… it’s not about caring  _ more _ about her, it’s about caring  _ differently _ about her. He has different obligations to Echo because she’s his wife than he has to you. You really can’t compare it; it’s like apples and oranges.”

The teenager rolls her eyes. “That’s such an overused metaphor.”

Lexa ignores her snarky comment. “Just talk to him. That’s all I’m saying. Talk to him - and really  _ listen. _ ”

Anya materializes in front of them, wearing a slinky, red, thin-strapped dress that hits her mid-thigh.

“Well? What do you think?”

“You look like a chili pepper,” Octavia deadpans.

Anya makes a face, then starts laughing. “She’ll make a great pilot, Lex.”

That’s so far off from what either Octavia or Lexa was expecting her to say that they both just blink for a moment, unable to figure out where the connection is.

“Where did that come from?” Lexa asks.

“She reminds me of  _ you, _ ” Anya clarifies. “Doesn’t mince words and shoots from the hip. No wonder you guys get along. Birds of a feather.” And with that, Anya turns and disappears back into her dressing room.

Lexa turns back to Octavia. “Listen, all I’m saying is that I don’t think Bellamy is in a great headspace.”

The carpet of the shop suddenly seems very interesting to Octavia. She says nothing.

“I know you have it in your head that he hates you - ”

“He does!” Octavia insists. “Once, when we were fighting? He complained that I ruined his life by existing. Mom and dad used to be so much less stressed before I was born. Once I came along, his life basically ended because he had to help take care of me so much.”

“That’s not hate,” Lexa points out. “That’s resentment. And it really has nothing to do with you! Bellamy knows you didn’t ask to be born. His anger should really have been directed at your parents - not you.”

“I know,” Octavia crosses her arms over her chest. “But he always took it out on me.”

“Maybe you need to tell him that’s how you feel.”

Octavia is quiet for a moment. Then she says, “You know what I really don’t get?”

“What’s that?”

“If he’s so mad at our parents for putting too much responsibility on him, why’d he go and marry a super controlling person? Echo is, like,  _ hella  _ intense. If he’s so mad about being told what to do, why did he willingly put himself in a position to be, like, bossed around all the time? It makes no sense.”

“Because it’s all he knows,” Lexa answers immediately, without even thinking. She’s not even sure where that realization came from, but there it is. “I don’t think he knows how to operate in a situation where he is completely in control. That’s why he…” Lexa trails off as a thought occurs to her.

“That’s why he what?” Octavia prompts.

“That’s why he didn’t go for Captain even though he has more than enough flying hours and experience,” Lexa says slowly, the thought blooming in her mind.

“What do you mean?”

“A few months before the accident, Polaris did a sweep of employees, looking for First Officers who wanted to move up to the Captain position - meaning they’d fly as Pilot In Command, or P.I.C, on every flight and get a pay raise and everything. Bellamy was totally eligible, but he didn’t apply.”

Octavia looks dumbfounded. “He willingly  _ didn’t _ try for a pay raise? With another kid on the way?” She shakes her head. “Wow. What an idiot.”

Before Lexa can answer, Anya’s voice floats out from the dressing room. “This is the one!”

She emerges wearing a floor length maroon gown with a slit along one leg that goes so high Lexa worries the entire gala will get an eyeful if Anya moves wrong. The dress is a halter style but the neckline plunges almost all the way to Anya’s navel. A shiny line of silver gems highlights Anya’s slim waist.

“Pair this with some nice strappy heels and I’m going to be the belle of the ball!”

Lexa rolls her eyes at Anya’s immodesty, but she has to admit the dress does look stunning on her.

“Whoa,” breathes Octavia. She’s staring at Anya with wide eyes, her mouth open slightly. “I wish I could wear a dress like  _ that!” _

“Well, why can’t you?” Anya asks flippantly, and Lexa cringes.

Octavia laughs a short, sharp laugh. “Well, for one thing, I have nowhere to wear it to! And for another thing, there’s no way on God’s green earth I could ever afford something like that!”

Anya meets Lexa’s eye and a silent communication passes between the sisters. Lexa gives a very slight nod.

“Well… why don’t you try some on, just for fun?” Anya suggests, striding forward and grabbing Octavia by the wrist. “Come on. There’s another one similar to this in a color that would look absolutely  _ ravishing  _ on you!”

Lexa watches fondly as her sister drags Octavia away into the depths of the shop. For all of Anya’s shortcomings (and there are many) she is a good person. Underneath her armor of wit and snarkiness, she has a huge heart. Lexa is proud of the person that Anya is, and proud to call herself Anya’s sister and she hopes with all her might that Octavia and Bellamy will someday feel the same way about each other as she and Anya do.

After a few minutes, Anya comes back, pushing a protesting Octavia toward the dressing room. She yanks the door open, gently shoves Octavia in and hands her three dresses on hangers. 

“Don’t come out until you have one of them on,” Anya instructs, shutting the door in Octavia’s face.

Several minutes pass and then the dressing room door opens a crack.

“Well, come on out,” Anya coaxes. “Let’s see!”

Octavia’s head peeks out. “I feel… silly,” she says, and Lexa realizes this is the first time she’s heard Octavia sound  _ shy. _

“I bet you look great,” Lexa cajoles. “Come on, show us.”

Awkwardly, Octavia walks out of the dressing room.

“Oh… my…. God,” Anya says, her jaw hanging open.

“What?” Octavia looks panicked. “What’s wrong? Does it look awful? See, I told you I don’t - ”

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Anya squeals. “It looks  _ amazing! _ Lex, don’t you think she looks awesome?”

Lexa has to admit that Octavia does look pretty good in the dress. It’s a mid-thigh length, taupe colored wraparound dress that clings to Octavia’s lithe frame, giving her the illusion of more curves than she actually has. The neckline dives almost to the bottom of her sternum.

Anya leans over. “A pair of ankle booties with a heel and voila,” she mumbles without moving her lips. To Octavia she says, “Okay, that one’s definitely a good look for you. Let’s see the next one!”

Octavia smiles shyly and disappears back into the dressing room.

When she has tried on the other two dresses (both of which look good but not as good as the first,) Anya says, “See? Now wasn’t that fun? Now you know you can totally pull off all three of those styles, which is good information to have. Don’t you agree?”

Octavia nods but her facial expression is wistful.

Anya looks at Lexa again, then darts her eyes toward the door of the shop. She doesn’t say anything but Lexa gets the message.

“Come on,” Lexa says to Octavia. “Let’s let Miss Priss buy her dress, and you and I will go to the Nike store. I want to get some headbands for running. They have the kind I like with the grip-thingies to hold my hair.”

Anya scoffs. “Miss Priss. Screw you.” And then, as Octavia and Lexa are almost out the door, she shouts, “Hey! Stop by Wetzel’s Pretzels, will ya? I want a pretzel with salt!”

  
  


**13:15:13**

Once Anya had met up with them and they’d left the Nike store, they had had to go through the motions of buying Lexa something to wear to the gala. Anya had made it fairly easy, though, by purposefully turning her nose up at everything they looked at in all of the three stores they went into. Octavia, who had never shopped for anything remotely this fancy, had no knowledge base so she hadn’t seemed suspicious when they didn’t purchase anything.

When they arrive back at Lexa’s house, Anya orders them all acai bowls and then promptly falls asleep on the couch with Titus.

Lexa and Octavia look at her with amusement and then tiptoe upstairs.

Octavia is about to walk into the guest room when Lexa says, “You should call him.”

“Call who?” Octavia asks, although Lexa knows she’s only pretending not to know.

“Your brother,” she says. “At least let him know where you are.”

“He already knows where I am, doesn’t he?” Octavia accuses. “I’m sure you told him.”

“Maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t,” Lexa says firmly. “But you’ll just have to call him to find out.” 

Octavia scowls and closes the door behind her.

But five minutes later, when Lexa tiptoes back downstairs to get the clean laundry out of the dryer, she hears Octavia talking in the guest room.

“I’m  _ sorry _ , Bell, but I knew you’d freak out if you knew where I was going…” Octavia’s voice sounds tight, tense.

Lexa hopes desperately that Octavia will be able to put aside her anger long enough to hear what  _ she _ heard in Bellamy’s voice that very morning.

When she creeps back up the stairs with the laundry basket, though, Lexa hears silence.

_ Did she hang up already?  _ Lexa pauses in the hallway, her ears perked. Her heart aches when she hears a sniffle.  _ She’s crying. _ Just as Lexa is about to knock on the door to ask if Octavia is okay, she hears her speak.

“I know… I love you too. I just… I’m so tired of feeling like I’m an inconvenience to you… No, I  _ know _ I am.”

Bellamy must be speaking because Octavia is quiet for several seconds.

“She does?” She asks, and Lexa suspects that the ‘she’ being referenced is Echo. “I… I didn’t know that. I’m really sorry, I should have -- Oh, come  _ on _ Bellamy. I was living in your  _ house _ for the last two years and never knew she was acting like that with you.”

Lexa sighs with relief. They are finally clearing the air. She hopes this will be the beginning of a long-standing communicative relationship between brother and sister. She and Anya made it there finally, and if they can make it, anyone can.

  
  


**14:39:02**

Anya is still snoring like a freight train on the couch when Lexa sneaks back in the front door after going for a run. The air has cooled considerably over the last few days but it’s still warmer than usual for the end of October. 

Tiptoeing up the stairs, Lexa is pulling the hair tie out of her hair when the door to the guest room suddenly flies open beside her, causing her to jump in surprise.

Octavia stands there, her hand on the doorknob, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, but with a smile on her face.

“Have a good run?” She asks, no doubt noticing Lexa’s sweaty clothes and flushed face.

“I did,” Lexa answers, still breathing slightly heavily. She takes note of Octavia’s relaxed posture, which is in direct contrast with her tear-stained face. “Did you, uh, have a… good… talk?” Lexa cringes at her awkwardness.  _ Smooth. _

Octavia nods. “We did.” She opens her mouth like she wants to say more but nothing comes out.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lexa prods gently.

Octavia steps back and opens the door wider. Following Octavia into the room, Lexa sits on the edge of the bed. Octavia crawls up and sits cross-legged against the headboard, pulling a pillow into her lap and fiddling with the edge of the pillowcase.

Patiently, Lexa waits for Octavia to speak. Finally, she does.

“I need to thank you,” the teenager begins. “There were a lot of things happening for Bellamy that I didn’t realize. I only was looking at the surface… like, his actions. I didn’t understand why he was  _ doing _ those things. Or, I guess,  _ not _ doing certain things. Or saying things, or whatever.”

Lexa hums sympathetically but says nothing.

“You were right,” Octavia continues. “He’s really not in a good headspace. I’m… actually a little worried about him. I should have noticed and, like, taken better care of him.”

A sharp noise comes from Lexa’s throat. She shakes her head. “That’s not your job, Octavia. He’s an adult.”

“So am I, technically,” Octavia points out. “But that’s not the point here. The point is, he’s my family and I should be helping him.”

Although she sees Octavia’s point, Lexa doesn’t agree with the entire sentiment of her statement. However, she also knows that nothing she says will change Octavia’s mind right now, so she stays quiet and lets her talk.

“I didn’t realize how much the crash impacted him and his self-confidence. He always seemed so… I dunno, solid, I guess? Like nothing ever really bothered him. Except me, that is.” Octavia gives a small huff of a laugh. “But I think I understand a little better now. He’s been trying to balance me and Echo and family and work and… all this shit, all by himself. And the crash just threw everything into disarray.”

Lexa finds herself nodding. She knows the feeling; like you’re barely hanging on.

“He didn’t mess up, though, did he?” Octavia’s eyes find Lexa’s and the earnest expression on the younger girl’s face is enough to make Lexa want to cry.

Octavia is eighteen, yes, but she’s still a child in many ways. A little girl who looks up to her big brother; wants to believe he can do no wrong but has seen him fall short on numerous occasions. Never before, though, to the detriment of anyone other than her. The idea that Bellamy might have done something to cause the crash of three eighty seven is weighing heavily on Octavia’s heart.

It also surprises Lexa that Bellamy hasn’t talked to her about the fact that the NTSB has all but figured out what happened to their airplane. But then, when she thinks about it, it really doesn’t surprise her that much. Bellamy, as Octavia has just said, has been trying to hold everyone and everything together all this time. Of course he wouldn’t burden his little sister with his problems.

“No,” Lexa says firmly. “He didn’t.” She looks right into Octavia’s eyes. “Your brother is a great pilot. He’s smart, capable and has good instincts. Obviously I never wanted to experience a plane crash but I can’t think of anyone other than Bellamy I’d rather have in the cockpit with me during an emergency.”

“Tell me what happened,” Octavia begs. “Please. I know it’s probably hard to talk about but… I need to know what happened during the crash. What did you say? What did Bell say? Was he scared? Were you?”

Questions pour forth from Octavia’s lips. Lexa looks at her. She sees only a young girl, desperately trying to understand what happened to her brother - how he got to the point he’s at. She wants to understand what he experienced so she can know how to support him.

Lexa takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. She grips the bedcovers in her fists.

_ “I can’t get any power to the engines…” _

_ ‘Too low - terrain.’ _

_ “Stall…” _

_ “Mayday, Polaris three-eighty-seven…” _

_ “Flaps twenty.” _

_ “Brace…” _

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until she feels tears splash onto her thigh.

“He was so brave, Octavia,” Lexa says tightly. “He was flying the plane when we came in to land. He tried to accelerate and the engines just didn’t respond.”

Octavia’s eyes are shimmering with tears as she listens.

“He was calm.” Lexa sniffles and swipes at her eyes. “He was calm and collected the whole time. He told me the engines weren’t responding. We had less than a minute to figure out what to do.”

“W-were you scared?” Octavia stammers. “Was he?”

Lexa shakes her head. “We didn’t have time to be scared. We had a job to do. I called for Bellamy to pull the flaps, he did. He called a mayday and told the passengers to brace. Then we hit the ground.” 

Lexa looks up into Octavia’s eyes.

“He did everything exactly right.”

Octavia’s face crumples. She surges forward and throws her arms around Lexa, almost knocking her onto her back on the bed.

“Thank you,” Octavia whispers wetly into Lexa’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you were the one flying with him when this happened.”

“‘Scuse me,” comes a voice from the doorway, startling both Octavia and Lexa.

They turn to find Anya leaning against the doorjamb, her eyebrows knitted together with concern. Octavia disentangles herself from Lexa and sits up, wiping her nose on the back of her wrist.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Anya says and for once Lexa thinks she’s actually being sincere. “But…  _ we, _ ” she points to herself and then Octavia, “have gotta go.”

“Go?” Octavia repeats, puzzled. “Where are we going?”

Anya smiles a soft smile that Lexa has never seen before.

“To the salon. You can’t accompany me to a gala with your hair looking like that, no offense. I’ve already got your dress in the car, and I looked at your shoe size when you were trying dresses on. You can borrow my ankle booties, we just have to stop by my house and grab them. Now come on, Cinderella. It’s time to get ready for the ball!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever been to a gala? Or a fancy party? Tell me the coolest story you have about that! Have you ever met any famous people?? Tell me ALL THE THINGS!

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fictional work based on a true story. Any fellow Av-Geeks gimme some love! I'm on tumblr MSSmysterygirl. Thank you to TheSSClexa for bolstering me to write this. xo


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